PHILANTHROPIST

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does philanthropist mean? 

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

1. someone who makes charitable donations intended to increase human well-being

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• PHILANTHROPIST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who makes charitable donations intended to increase human well-being

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

altruist; philanthropist

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

bestower; conferrer; donor; giver; presenter (person who makes a gift of property)

Instance hyponyms:

Andrew Carnegie; Carnegie (United States industrialist and philanthropist who endowed education and public libraries and research trusts (1835-1919))

Cooper; Peter Cooper (United States industrialist who built the first American locomotive; founded Cooper Union in New York City to offer free courses in the arts and sciences (1791-1883))

Cornell; Ezra Cornell (United States businessman who unified the telegraph system in the United States and who in 1865 (with Andrew D. White) founded Cornell University (1807-1874))

Guggenheim; Solomon Guggenheim (United States philanthropist; son of Meyer Guggenheim who created several foundations to support the arts (1861-1949))

Harvard; John Harvard (American philanthropist who left his library and half his estate to the Massachusetts college that now bears his name (1607-1638))

Hershey; Milton Snavely Hershey (United States confectioner and philanthropist who created the model industrial town of Hershey, Pennsylvania; founded an industrial school for orphan boys (1857-1945))

Hopkins; Johns Hopkins (United States financier and philanthropist who left money to found the university and hospital that bear his name in Baltimore (1795-1873))

Andrew Mellon; Andrew W. Mellon; Andrew William Mellon; Mellon (United States financier and philanthropist (1855-1937))

Alfred Bernhard Nobel; Alfred Nobel; Nobel (Swedish chemist remembered for his invention of dynamite and for the bequest that created the Nobel prizes (1833-1896))

First Viscount Nuffield; Nuffield; William Richard Morris (British industrialist who manufactured automobiles and created a philanthropic foundation (1877-1963))

John D. Rockefeller; John Davison Rockefeller; Rockefeller (United States industrialist who made a fortune in the oil business and gave half of it away (1839-1937))

Commodore Vanderbilt; Cornelius Vanderbilt; Vanderbilt (United States financier who accumulated great wealth from railroad and shipping businesses (1794-1877))

Elihu Yale; Yale (English philanthropist who made contributions to a college in Connecticut that was renamed in his honor (1649-1721))

Derivation:

philanthropy (voluntary promotion of human welfare)

 Context examples 

I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“Since when have you become a philanthropist?” I queried. “Confess, now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very consistent.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

That brow was the brow of the public Charles Fox, the thinker, the philanthropist, the man who rallied and led the Liberal party during the twenty most hazardous years of its existence.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The unusual salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond my powers to determine.

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

He was a man with large, thoughtful eyes, and a full, placid face—such a face as one would expect from a philosopher and a philanthropist, rather than from a fighting seaman.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But that was what we thought of it in the days of your grandfathers, and that is why you might find statesmen and philanthropists like Windham, Fox, and Althorp at the side of the Ring.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

No, young lady, I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience; and he pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head: and, besides, I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)