[char-i-tee] 
| 1. | generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill, or helpless: to devote one's life to charity. |
| 2. | something given to a person or persons in need; alms: She asked for work, not charity. |
| 3. | a charitable act or work. |
| 4. | a charitable fund, foundation, or institution: He left his estate to a charity. |
| 5. | benevolent feeling, esp. toward those in need or in disfavor: She looked so poor that we fed her out of charity. |
| 6. | leniency in judging others; forbearance: She was inclined to view our selfish behavior with charity. |
| 7. | Christian love; agape. |
[char-i-tee] | a female given name. |
| char·i·ty (chār'ĭ-tē) n. pl. char·i·ties
[Middle English charite, from Old French, Christian love, from Latin cāritās, affection, from cārus, dear; see kā- in Indo-European roots.] |
"Wyclif and the Rhemish version regularly rendered the Vulgate dilectio by 'love,' caritas by 'charity.' But the 16th c. Eng. versions from Tindale to 1611, while rendering agape sometimes 'love,' sometimes 'charity,' did not follow the dilectio and caritas of the Vulgate, but used 'love' more often (about 86 times), confining 'charity' to 26 passages in the Pauline and certain of the Catholic Epistles (not in I John), and the Apocalypse .... In the Revised Version 188
CHARITY language
A functional language based purely on category theory by Cockett, Spencer, and Fukushima, 1990-1991.
A version for Sun-4 is available from Tom Fukushima
["About Charity", J.R.B. Cockett, U. Calgary, Canada, et al].
(2000-10-30)
Charity
(1 Cor. 13), the rendering in the Authorized Version of the word which properly denotes love, and is frequently so rendered (always so in the Revised Version). It is spoken of as the greatest of the three Christian graces (1 Cor. 12:31-13:13).
charity
in Christian thought, the highest form of love, signifying the reciprocal love between God and man that is made manifest in unselfish love of one's fellow men. St. Paul's classical description of charity is found in the New Testament (I Cor. 13). In Christian theology and ethics, charity (a translation of the Greek word agape, also meaning "love") is most eloquently shown in the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine summarized much of Christian thought about charity when he wrote: "Charity is a virtue which, when our affections are perfectly ordered, unites us to God, for by it we love him." Using this definition and others from the Christian tradition, the medieval theologians, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, placed charity in the context of the other Christian virtues and specified its role as "the foundation or root" of them all
Learn more about charity with a free trial on Britannica.com.
ɪ