BENEFACTRESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does benefactress mean? 

• BENEFACTRESS (noun)
  The noun BENEFACTRESS has 1 sense:

1. a woman benefactor

  Familiarity information: BENEFACTRESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BENEFACTRESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A woman benefactor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("benefactress" is a kind of...):

benefactor; helper (a person who helps people or institutions (especially with financial help))

 Context examples 

"And now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Truth obliged her to acknowledge some small share in the action, but she was at the same time so unwilling to appear as the benefactress of Edward, that she acknowledged it with hesitation; which probably contributed to fix that suspicion in his mind which had recently entered it.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"Benefactress! benefactress!" said I inwardly: "they all call Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's son! Your young master."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects, continued my benefactress; to be made useful, to be kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)