BENEFIT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Benefit

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/bˈɛnəfɪt/ Listen

noun

Benefit n.

An act of kindness; a favor conferred. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

Whatever promotes prosperity and personal happiness, or adds value to property; advantage; profit. "Men have no right to what is not for their benefit."

A theatrical performance, a concert, or the like, the proceeds of which do not go to the lessee of the theater or to the company, but to some individual actor, or to some charitable use.

Beneficence; liberality. (Obs.)

pl. Natural advantages; endowments; accomplishments. (R.) "The benefits of your own country."

Benefit of clergy. (Law) See under Clergy.

Synonyms: Profit; service; use; avail. See Advantage.

verb

Benefit v. t. (past & past part. benefitted; pres. part. benefitting) To be beneficial to; to do good to; to advantage; to advance in health or prosperity; to be useful to; to profit. "I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them."

Benefit v. i. (past & past part. benefitted; pres. part. benefitting) To gain advantage; to make improvement; to profit; as, he will benefit by the change.

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Etymology of 'Benefit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Benefit" Quotes from Famous Books

... minutes Stonor was ready to start. He put on a cheery air for Mary's benefit. Truly the Indian woman had a task before her that might have ...

— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... of their neighbors who agree with them in their ideas, as if they were an exception to their race. We must not allow any creed or religion whatsoever to confiscate to its own private use and benefit the virtues which belong to our common humanity. The Good Samaritan helped his wounded neighbor simply because he was a suffering fellow-creature. Do you think your charitable act is more acceptable than the Good Samaritan's, because you do it in the ...

— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... never act in a similar capacity again—and was fined sixty shillings nomine recreantisae—for cowardice. In the reign of Henry II. these arrangements were modified, and the tenant might put himself on the assise. "The assise," says Glanville, "is a royal benefit conferred on the nation by the prince in his clemency, by the advice of his nobles, as an expedient whereby the lives and interests of his subjects might be preserved, and their property and rights enjoyed, without being any longer obliged to submit to the doubtful chance of the duel. ...

— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... work with his masters, and was doing his best, which was very good. If his heart was not so much in it as when he was studying with his big brother, he gained a great benefit from the increase of exercise to his will, in the doing of what was less pleasant. Ever since Hugh had given his faculties a right direction, and aided him by healthful manly sympathy, he had been making ...

— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... the people; in those days there were no people outside the Tower, save the inhabitants of a few scattered cottages along the river Wall, and the farmhouses of Steban Heath. It was simply founded for the benefit of two little princes' souls. One refrains from asking what was done for the little paupers' souls in ...

— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

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