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.
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.
Preston Fore, Fortune, 10 Aug. 2025
As a benevolent barbarian warrior in the mythical land of Hyrkania, Sonja is enslaved and imprisoned by the ecocidal emperor known as Draygan (Robert Sheehan).
—Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 8 Aug. 2025
Its land is farmed communally, and its lord, Master Kent (Harry Melling), is a benevolent soul who prefers coaxing and rewarding to ordering and punishing.
—Richard Brody, New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2025
Professor Skye, who provides rambling, philosophy-laden meditations on albums that might at first seem out of the wheelhouse of an aging French lecturer, if that benevolent teacher vibe is your thing.
—Kieran Press-Reynolds, Pitchfork, 31 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for benevolent
Cite this Entry
“Benevolent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/benevolent. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
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benevolent
adjective
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