Word of the Day
Saturday, November 09, 2002
beneficence
\buh-NEFF-i-suhns\ , noun;
1.
The practice of doing good; active goodness, kindness, or charity.
2.
A charitable gift or act.
Quotes:
Lord Jeffrey told Dickens that it [A Christmas Carol] had "prompted more positive acts of beneficence than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals in Christendom since Christmas 1842."
-- Roger Highfield, The Physics of Christmas
From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
She had disseminated around her what seemed an involuntary aura of beneficence and goodwill.
-- John Bayley, Elegy for Iris
Origin:
Beneficence is from Latin beneficentia, from beneficus, kind, generous, obliging, from bene, well (from bonus, good) + facere, to do. One who, or that which, is characterized by beneficence is beneficent.
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