BENEFICENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does beneficent mean? 

• BENEFICENT (adjective)
  The adjective BENEFICENT has 2 senses:

1. doing or producing good

2. generous in assistance to the poor

  Familiarity information: BENEFICENT used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BENEFICENT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Doing or producing good

Context example:

the most beneficent regime in history

Similar:

benefic (exerting a favorable or beneficent influence)

Also:

kind (having or showing a tender and considerate and helpful nature; used especially of persons and their behavior)

Attribute:

beneficence (the quality of being kind or helpful or generous)

Antonym:

maleficent (harmful or evil in intent or effect)

Derivation:

beneficence (the quality of being kind or helpful or generous)

beneficence (doing good; feeling beneficent)

benefit (be beneficial for)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Generous in assistance to the poor

Synonyms:

beneficent; benevolent; eleemosynary; philanthropic

Context example:

philanthropic contributions

Similar:

charitable (full of love and generosity)

 Context examples 

It was the one beneficent thing in the universe.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me—passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)