BENEFICENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does beneficence mean? 

• BENEFICENCE (noun)
  The noun BENEFICENCE has 2 senses:

1. doing good; feeling beneficent

2. the quality of being kind or helpful or generous

  Familiarity information: BENEFICENCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BENEFICENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Doing good; feeling beneficent

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

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

benevolence (disposition to do good)

Antonym:

maleficence (doing or causing evil)

Derivation:

beneficent (doing or producing good)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being kind or helpful or generous

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

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

good; goodness (moral excellence or admirableness)

Attribute:

beneficent (doing or producing good)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "beneficence"):

free grace; grace; grace of God ((Christian theology) the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God)

Antonym:

maleficence (the quality or nature of being harmful or evil)

Derivation:

beneficent (doing or producing good)

 Context examples 

Yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.—'There, Mrs. Bennet.'—My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive-branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends—but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'ennight following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)