How to Use beneficent in a Sentence

beneficent

adjective
  • Ohio 'not beneficent toward black people' Lynchings took many forms.
    — Mark Curnutte, Cincinnati.com, 30 Apr. 2018
  • The last light disappearing, night and stars emerging, a beneficent moon rising.
    — Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • Moral perversion exists side by side in Shakespeare’s tragedy with beneficent strength.
    — Los Angeles Times, 2 Dec. 2021
  • Have yourself a most joyous Fastnacht, and all hail the beneficent Mothman.
    — Samuel Axon, Ars Technica, 27 Apr. 2024
  • All praise Marc Benioff, the beneficent, the wise, the creator of Salesforce.
    — Sarah Jones, New Republic, 6 June 2017
  • Today’s Tiny Tims can’t rely on beneficent poltergeists to scare plutocrats straight.
    — Natalie Shure, The New Republic, 20 Dec. 2021
  • The idea of a powerful, beneficent state able to provide for everyone’s needs is compelling and can find fertile soil anywhere.
    — Krista Kafer, The Denver Post, 3 Oct. 2019
  • Under these terms, any tech company can start to seem like a welcoming partner, if not a beneficent institution.
    — Jacob Silverman, The New Republic, 16 Mar. 2021
  • The Virgin looks warily to her right, as if to protect the child seated on her lap, who is turned to the left and raises one hand in beneficent blessing.
    — Jerry Saltz, Vulture, 8 Mar. 2024
  • Many see Sheikh Amoudi less as a beneficent local son than a Saudi privateer.
    — Danny Hakim and Ben Hubbard, New York Times, 16 Mar. 2018
  • Contact tracing apps emerged as snitching’s beneficent public health application this year.
    — Ezra Marcus, New York Times, 26 Feb. 2021
  • There was a question about it every now and again, but Frank will be remembered as a beneficent champion of his native state, one who worked hard for the greater good.
    — oregonlive, 13 Mar. 2022
  • Akbar, his beneficent Creator, hears his prayer and gives him the apocalypse, replete with wild horses, smoke, and flowers raining from the sky.
    — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Insisting, as Dreher does, that the West is their beneficent father and mother is bizarre, if not downright insulting.
    — Sarah Jones, New Republic, 25 Jan. 2018
  • But in Las Vegas, where spectacle-over-substance is kind of the whole point, the Wizard was a beneficent showman.
    — Bethy Squires, Vulture, 30 Aug. 2025
  • With the monetary system in a free-fall, some Iranians would rather have a beneficent king than all these pretenders oh-so-interested in the people.
    — Editorial Board, Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2026
  • Many modern immunotherapy drugs, for instance, work best in the presence of beneficent microbes—as do some older chemotherapies.
    — Claudia Wallis, Scientific American, 14 Sep. 2020
  • Sometimes seemingly beneficent otherworldly beings take a cruel turn that seems all the harsher because the switch is unfathomable, almost out of nowhere.
    — Sam Hurwitt, The Mercury News, 29 Apr. 2017
  • Oh no, the world is suddenly a-flush with inventive, moral, empathetic, charming, attractive and beneficent people!
    — Kyle Munkittrick, Discover Magazine, 22 Feb. 2011
  • This inevitably results in conflict with his cohorts, who don’t appreciate such beneficent actions as Wolf gently coaxing a frightened kitty down from a tree.
    — Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Apr. 2022
  • What, besides a desire to warm up his image, moved Rumsfeld to tell the story of Gerald Ford’s beneficent 895 days?
    — Evan Thomas, New York Times, 26 June 2018
  • In the past three years, as some three hundred thousand refugees, many from Syria and Afghanistan, have sought asylum, there has been a growing sense that the country can no longer afford to be beneficent.
    — Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2017
  • Having beneficent Jupiter and elusive Neptune as your co-ruling planets hints at your innate angelic, but spacey qualities.
    — Ashley Otero, Teen Vogue, 20 Aug. 2018
  • Both center-left and center-right in the West coalesce around calls for more porous borders, freer trade, and open minds, calling them either inevitable or beneficent, or more often both at once.
    — R. R. Reno, Foreign Affairs, 13 Nov. 2018
  • The government has flailed in its response to the pandemic, and Big Tech has presented itself as a beneficent friend, willing to lend a competent hand.
    — Franklin Foer, The Atlantic, 12 June 2020
  • To avoid scrutiny and having the face the court of public opinion, many organizations and institutions took pre-emptive measures that on the surface seemed beneficent.
    — Janice Gassam Asare, Forbes, 1 May 2022
  • The hothouse plants of campus mores have become invasive species undermining and crowding out the beneficent flora of the larger free democratic society.
    — Michael Barone, National Review, 16 Feb. 2018
  • But for, say, two young black men trying to jump a car that won’t start—no doubt frustrated and late for work—the arrival of a police officer is the arrival of a government agent who may be in a beneficent mood or a vengeful one.
    — Vanityfair.com, VanityFair.com, 21 Mar. 2017
  • The impulse that rejects the very notion of IQ differences between races will thrive despite any beneficent intentions founded on belief in such differences.
    — John McWhorter, National Review, 5 July 2017
  • Under the beneficent interrogation of host Alex Trebek, nervous middle schoolers point to obscure corners of the globe, as their even more nervous parents watch.
    — Jeffrey Marlow, WIRED, 28 May 2013

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'beneficent.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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