【Premium】 , 【prize】 , 【award】 , 【reward】 , 【meed】 , 【guerdon】 , 【bounty】 , 【bonus】 are comparable when they mean something which is bestowed upon a person as a recompense for cooperation, greater effort, superior merit, or supremacy in competition.
【Premium】 is applied usually to something extra or additional that serves as an incentive to buy, sell, loan, compete, or strive.
【Prize】 is applied to something which is striven for or, sometimes, which may be won by chance; it is bestowed upon the winner in a contest or competition or in a lottery.
In extended use 【prize】 commonly implies effort, struggle, and uncertainty in the seeking and often imputes value or worth to what is sought or competed for.
【Award】 implies both a decision of judges and a bestowal of a 【prize】 or an honor; it is therefore often preferred to 【prize】 when the recipients have not been competitors in the strict sense but have in their work or performances fulfilled the conditions required by those who offer prizes.
【Award】 is also applicable to the act of awarding a 【prize】 or to the decision in a particular competition.
【Reward】 strongly involves the idea of recompense for something good or meritorious or ironically for something evil; it may be used in reference to a 【prize】 or 【premium】 only when that has been earned (as by effort or sacrifice); thus, a winner of a 【prize】 for the best novel of the year may feel that he has been given a 【reward】 for intense effort; a 【reward】 is offered for the return of a lost article.
【Meed】 and 【guerdon】 are close synonyms of 【reward】 , often employed without distinction, but the former tends to suggest a 【reward】 recognizing merit and proportioned to it, and the latter a 【prize】 or honor conferred as a 【reward】 .
【Bounty】 and 【bonus】 are applicable chiefly to a sum of money or its equivalent given as a 【premium】 or 【reward】 .
【Bounty】 is usually applied to a 【premium】 promised by a government or governmental agency as an inducement to some act (as enlistment in the army or navy, emigration to a distant colony, or destruction of noxious animals or pests) or as a subsidy to industry.
【Bonus】 , in contrast, is usually applied to something given over and above what is regularly received or due, either as a 【reward】 or encouragement or as a distribution of surplus.
