Benevolent

 Word of the Day : May 25, 2022

benevolent / adjective / buh-NEV-uh-lunt

What It Means

1a: marked by or disposed to doing good

1b: organized for the purpose of doing good

2: marked by or suggestive of goodwill

Examples

“I want to thank the benevolent stranger who found my keys and reunited me with them after seven months." 

— Curt Vazquez, letter in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 16 May 2022

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

Did You Know?

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.