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.
Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 3 Mar. 2025
In Thai Buddhist lore, these trees, thousands of which spike Koh Samui, are home to benevolent spirits, says political scientist Pavin Chachavalpongpun, from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Japan’s Kyoto University.
—Ronan O'Connell, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Feb. 2025
He’s gone from the symbol of all things sane and benevolent to a violent dictator in the course of a month.
—Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 20 Feb. 2025
Secret Societies and the Fight for Black Freedom Dating to the pre-Revolutionary era, mutual aid and benevolent societies supported Black Americans and the fight for civil rights and justice.
—JSTOR Daily, 20 Feb. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Benevolent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/benevolent. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.
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benevolent
adjective
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