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BENEFACTOR
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A person who helps people or institutions (especially with financial help)
Synonyms:
benefactor; helper
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("benefactor" is a kind of...):
good person (a person who is good to other people)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "benefactor"):
benefactress (a woman benefactor)
bondsman; bondswoman (someone who signs a bond as surety for someone else)
bestower; conferrer; donor; giver; presenter (person who makes a gift of property)
donor ((medicine) someone who gives blood or tissue or an organ to be used in another person (the host))
fairy godmother (a generous benefactor)
good Samaritan (a person who voluntarily offers help or sympathy in times of trouble)
do-gooder; humanitarian; improver (someone devoted to the promotion of human welfare and to social reforms)
liberator (someone who releases people from captivity or bondage)
accommodator; obliger (someone who performs a service or does a favor)
offerer; offeror (someone who presents something to another for acceptance or rejection)
patron; sponsor; supporter (someone who supports or champions something)
provider (someone who provides the means for subsistence)
deliverer; rescuer; savior; saviour (a person who rescues you from harm or danger)
sparer (someone who refrains from injuring or destroying)
uncle (a source of help and advice and encouragement)
Context examples:
And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me—my mind revolted from the taint the very tale conveyed.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
“And you are a benefactor of the race,” said I.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Two I have already destroyed; other victims await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor—
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed “Edward Hyde”: and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer’s benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for a thousand generosities, need labour under no alarm for his safety, as he had means of escape on which he placed a sure dependence.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
By midday my husband and I were on our way to London, but not before he had given our benefactor full warning of this danger, and had also left such information for the police as would safeguard his life for the future.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
To our venerable benefactor Mr. Laurence I leave my purple box with a looking glass in the cover which will be nice for his pens and remind him of the departed girl who thanks him for his favors to her family, especially Beth.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
‘My name,’ said he, ‘is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor.’
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
For the sake of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor and friend, a child whom she had nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if it had been her own!
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
