How to Use benign in a Sentence

benign

adjective
  • We were happy to hear that the tumor was benign.
  • Farther south, the effects of the heat are less benign.
    Alejandra Borunda, National Geographic, 30 Sep. 2019
  • More benign footage has been removed from the video, as well.
    Chris Willman, Variety, 26 July 2023
  • Odds are the lump is benign, and your guy may not need to address it at all.
    Jenna Birch, Health.com, 16 Mar. 2018
  • The current that cut that canyon looks shallow and benign.
    Keith McCafferty, Field & Stream, 11 Dec. 2020
  • The intent might be as benign as the creative use of language.
    Robert Myers, Quartz, 8 Aug. 2019
  • The benign terra cotta heads were deemed by some to be racist.
    John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 2 June 2017
  • But the most dispiriting sounds of all are often the most benign.
    Eben Weiss, Outside Online, 17 Mar. 2022
  • Some of the pictures are as benign as a day at the beach, but others smack of danger.
    Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 24 June 2022
  • In the moment, that Marisnick did not catch the ball was benign.
    Chandler Rome, Houston Chronicle, 29 June 2018
  • Doctors removed the mass, which turned out to be benign.
    al, 26 Apr. 2021
  • Uterine fibroids are benign tumors that grow in and around the uterus.
    Sumathi Reddy, WSJ, 23 Oct. 2017
  • Singer lies on her sofa in pain after the removal of a mass from her breast that turned out to be benign.
    Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2021
  • Sulin, in turn, assured her daughter that the growth was benign.
    Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2020
  • But as with many things in life, a benign trend gone too far can become a problem.
    Matthew Yglesias, Vox, 3 Apr. 2018
  • But water isn't as benign as one might be inclined to think.
    Miriam Fauzia, USA TODAY, 24 Sep. 2019
  • But the tumor was benign, and Quinn had surgery to enable him to live with the tumor.
    Colleen Kane, Chicago Tribune, 27 Apr. 2022
  • Chimps are the natural host of only a few viruses, and these are on the whole rather benign.
    Kyle Harper, Time, 11 Mar. 2020
  • That might seem benign, or perhaps even endearing—the sound of the bustle of the big city.
    Kate Wagner, The Atlantic, 20 Feb. 2018
  • The root causes of today’s low rates of price growth might be mostly benign.
    Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, 15 June 2017
  • There is simply no way to take benign photos of armed people.
    Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker, 17 Apr. 2018
  • The good news is that lipomas are nearly always benign.
    Jenn Sinrich, SELF, 31 May 2019
  • Some of the most common: fibroids, polyps and benign uterine growths.
    Beth Anne MacAluso, Redbook, 27 Dec. 2017
  • At first, the ghostly sightings are benign, but then the spirit asks to move into the doll.
    Eliza Thompson, Cosmopolitan, 20 June 2017
  • But such microbes may not be as benign if transmitted from wild plants to crops.
    Saima May Sidik, Scientific American, 1 May 2022
  • Most poisoning cases in pets were benign, the study found.
    NBC News, 20 Apr. 2022
  • The idea that pot is benign, or only an issue within a unit, is not true.
    Beth Teitell, BostonGlobe.com, 15 Apr. 2018
  • Fungi come in many forms, some less benign than others.
    Ryan Cross, Science | AAAS, 28 June 2017
  • Even on the most benign summer days, its power was omnipresent.
    Pam Mandel, Longreads, 30 May 2017
  • But even the apps that are slightly more benign, or at least less legally pressed, are part of the same system.
    J.c. Pan, The New Republic, 3 Sep. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'benign.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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