What is "to have the advantage of"

Advantage \Ad*van"tage\ (?; 61, 48), n. [OE. avantage, avauntage, F. avantage, fr. avant before. See Advance, and cf. Vantage.]

1. Any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means, particularly favorable to success, or to any desired end; benefit; as, the enemy had the advantage of a more elevated position.

   Give me advantage of some brief discourse.
   --Shak.

   The advantages of a close alliance.
   --Macaulay.

2. Superiority; mastery; -- with of or over.

   Lest Satan should get an advantage of us.
   --2 Cor. ii. 11.

3. Superiority of state, or that which gives it; benefit; gain; profit; as, the advantage of a good constitution.

4. Interest of money; increase; overplus (as the thirteenth in the baker's dozen). [Obs.]

   And with advantage means to pay thy love.
   --Shak.

   Advantage ground, vantage ground. [R.]
   --Clarendon.

   To have the advantage of (any one), to have a personal knowledge of one who does not have a reciprocal knowledge. ``You have the advantage of me; I don't remember ever to have had the honor.''
   --Sheridan.

   To take advantage of, to profit by; (often used in a bad sense) to overreach, to outwit.

   Syn: Advantage, Advantageous, Benefit, Beneficial.

   Usage: We speak of a thing as a benefit, or as beneficial, when it is simply productive of good; as, the benefits of early discipline; the beneficial effects of adversity. We speak of a thing as an advantage, or as advantageous, when it affords us the means of getting forward, and places us on a ``vantage ground'' for further effort. Hence, there is a difference between the benefits and the advantages of early education; between a beneficial and an advantageous investment of money.