benevolent
adjective
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Benevolent Has a Good History
One who is benevolent genuinely wishes other people well, a meaning reflected clearly in the word's Latin roots: benevolent comes from bene, meaning "good," and velle, meaning "to wish." Other descendants of velle in English include volition, which refers to the power to make one's own choices or decisions, and voluntary, as well as the rare velleity, meaning either "the lowest degree of volition" or "a slight wish or tendency." A more familiar velle descendant stands directly opposed to benevolent: malevolent describes someone or something having or showing a desire to cause harm to another person.
Synonyms
Examples of benevolent in a Sentence
Sebastian Junger, This Old House, March/April 1998
Grandfather sometimes turned on us like a rigged trap, and of course the benevolent gaze of the sage became the glare of the patriarch.
—Darryl Pinckney, High Cotton, 1992
A Southern writer is allowed his eccentricities. The prevailing attitude is a kind of benevolent neglect.
—Walker Percy, "Why I Live Where I Live," 1980,
in Signposts in a Strange Land, 1991
They tore out the windows of the club's simple storefront and bricked them over and left two much smaller windows … so that the look of the club changed from that of a benevolent neighborhood organization to that of a paramilitary one.
—"The Talk of the Town,"
New Yorker, 26 Feb. 1990
a gift from a benevolent donor
He belonged to several benevolent societies and charitable organizations.
EW.com, 22 Jan. 2025
In it, humanity’s future has been largely tamed by a brilliant mathematician who uses statistical laws to control human behavior and protect against catastrophic events, ensuring what is supposed to be benevolent and stable rule for centuries.
—Margaret MacMillan, Foreign Affairs, 7 Jan. 2025
His benevolent counterpart, St. Nicholas, will then gift children who have been good on the following day, known as the Feast of St. Nicholas.
Celebrations involving the two began in pre-Christian times as far back as the sixth century.
—Jennifer Borresen, USA TODAY, 13 Dec. 2024
In other words, hiring and promoting for culture-fit is a politically correct, socially accepted, and benevolent way to promote in-group favoritism and tribalism.
—Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes, 23 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Benevolent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/benevolent. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.
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benevolent
adjective
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