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Benevolent   /bənˈɛvələnt/   Listen
adjective
Benevolent  adj.  Having a disposition to do good; possessing or manifesting love to mankind, and a desire to promote their prosperity and happiness; disposed to give to good objects; kind; charitable.
Synonyms: Benevolent, Beneficent. Etymologically considered, benevolent implies wishing well to others, and beneficent, doing well. But by degrees the word benevolent has been widened to include not only feelings, but actions; thus, we speak of benevolent operations, benevolent labors for the public good, benevolent societies. In like manner, beneficent is now often applied to feelings; thus, we speak of the beneficent intentions of a donor. This extension of the terms enables us to mark nicer shades of meaning. Thus, the phrase "benevolent labors" turns attention to the source of these labors, viz., benevolent feeling; while beneficent would simply mark them as productive of good. So, "beneficent intentions" point to the feelings of the donor as bent upon some specific good act; while "benevolent intentions" would only denote a general wish and design to do good.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Benevolent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Arabia was strictly in accordance with the maxims of policy adopted by the then rulers of British India, and which they were at the same time engaged in carrying out, on a far more extended scale, in Affghanistan. In both cases—perhaps from a benevolent anxiety to accommodate our diplomacy to the primitive ideas of those with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... the compassionate ears of Don Jose Rico, vice-consul of Spain, at that time, in Tangier. The voice of complaining humanity never failed to touch the feeling heart of this good man; nor could he rest till his benevolent work was begun. He respectfully, therefore, petitioned the governor to mitigate the sufferings of the young Jewess, or even, if possible, to liberate her altogether; public sympathy being, as he represented, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... in a gloomy and solitary manner, seldom visited by any person except his benevolent landlord, who came daily to ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... appeal is made for any benevolent object the squire says, "Go to my house and ask my wife to give you something." She, in turn, points the applicant to the field or the orchard, and says, "Go down there and ask my husband to give you something." So one puts it on the other, and nothing is given; and neither the ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... may never know, the meaning my companion read into my silence. Having shortly before made the frank confession that I had never seen the Alps, he may have intended to excite envious feelings within me, and imagined he had succeeded. But I can deny the fact with a good conscience, and until some benevolent person shall give me the opportunity of making a comparison between home and foreign landscapes, I shall continue to assert—happy in my ignorance, it may be, but still happy—that there is no fairer prospect upon earth than the Strath of Earn from the ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various


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