See also: bénéficient

English edit

Etymology edit

Modification of beneficent after beneficial.

Pronunciation edit

Adjective edit

beneficient (comparative more beneficient, superlative most beneficient)

  1. (sometimes proscribed) beneficent
    • 1929, Time, 25 March, 1929, "Apple Salt," [1]
      Last week. Dr. John Christian Krantz Jr., chemist and pharmacist at Johns Hopkins, announced that that laboratory of many a beneficient drug had created a salt substitute, which has proved palatable during a year's tests.
    • 1981, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Writers in Politics: Essays, London: Heinemann, Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 47,
      And not the least, they smashed the racialist view of peasants as uncultured recipients of cultures from beneficient foreigners.