CHARITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does charity mean? 

• CHARITY (noun)
  The noun CHARITY has 5 senses:

1. a foundation created to promote the public good (not for assistance to any particular individuals)

2. a kindly and lenient attitude toward people

3. an activity or gift that benefits the public at large

4. pinnate-leaved European perennial having bright blue or white flowers

5. an institution set up to provide help to the needy

  Familiarity information: CHARITY used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CHARITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A foundation created to promote the public good (not for assistance to any particular individuals)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

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

foundation (an institution supported by an endowment)

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

philanthropic foundation (a foundation that provides funds for science or art or education or religion or relief from disease etc.)

private foundation (a charity that does not receive a major part of its support from the public)

public charity (a charity that is deemed to receive the major part of its support from the public (rather than from a small group of individuals))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A kindly and lenient attitude toward people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

brotherly love; charity

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

benevolence (an inclination to do kind or charitable acts)

supernatural virtue; theological virtue (according to Christian ethics: one of the three virtues (faith, hope, and charity) created by God to round out the natural virtues)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An activity or gift that benefits the public at large

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

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

gift; giving (the act of giving)

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

handout (giving money or food or clothing to a needy person)

zakat (the fourth pillar of Islam is almsgiving as an act of worship)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Pinnate-leaved European perennial having bright blue or white flowers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

charity; Greek valerian; Jacob's ladder; Polemonium caeruleum; Polemonium van-bruntiae; Polymonium caeruleum van-bruntiae

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

polemonium (any plant of the genus Polemonium; most are low-growing often foul-smelling plants of temperate to Arctic regions)

Sense 5

Meaning:

An institution set up to provide help to the needy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

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

establishment; institution (an organization founded and united for a specific purpose)

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

community chest (a charity supported by individual subscriptions; defrays the demands on a community for social welfare)

soup kitchen (a place where food is dispensed to the needy)

 Context examples 

This house rules not only friendships and groups, and love and charity, it is called the house of hopes and wishes.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

“Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,” said Steerforth, “and to say what I mean,—what I have to say is, that his mother lives on charity in an alms-house.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Out-and-out beggars get taken care of, but poor gentle folks fare badly, because they won't ask, and people don't dare to offer charity.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Yet I have heard you speak so often with broad charity of the fallibility and frailty of humankind.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Yet he had a reputation for kindness and charity on the country-side, and was noted for the leniency of his sentences from the bench.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The confession completely renewed her first shame—and the sight of Harriet's tears made her think that she should never be in charity with herself again.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

“Well,” he added after he had dosed them round and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates—“well, that's done for today.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

You cannot conceive—you who live in times of peace and charity—how fierce the hatred was in England at that time against the French, and above all against their great leader.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Hadst asked me in the name of charity I would have given freely,” cried Alleyne.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in- law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)