An organic crystal, diphenylacetic acid (DPA) was grown by the slow evaporation solution growth technique. The title compound crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system with space group, P21/c. UV–vis–NIR spectral study showed that the grown DPA crystal is transparent in the entire visible region with the lower cut-off wavelength of 225 nm. The four independent tensor coefficients of dielectric permittivity were found to be ε11 = 29.92, ε22 = 28.74, ε33 = 27.38 and ε13 = 0.81 from the dielectric measurements. The DPA compound is thermally stable up to 148.9 °C assessed by thermogravimetric and differential thermal (TG–DTA) analyses. The laser induced surface damage threshold of the grown DPA crystal was found to be 0.2165 GWcm−2 for 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser radiation. Nonlinear refractive index (n2), absorption coefficient (β) and third order nonlinear susceptibility (χ(3)) were determined by Z-scan technique for the DPA crystal. Optical limiting study revealed that the transmitted output power increases linearly with the input power up to irradiance of around 3.1 mW/cm2.