benignity
Americannoun
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benignities
plural
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the quality of being benign; kindness.
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Archaic. a good deed or favor; an instance of kindness.
benignities born of selfless devotion.
noun
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the quality of being benign; favourable attitude
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a kind or gracious act
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of benignity
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English benignite, from Middle French, Old French, from Latin benignitās; see benign, -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was as though, feeling my hand, he felt my benignity.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 30, 2019
Notice the benignity in those examples, because — quite importantly — Thor does not become malicious.
From Salon ● May 1, 2019
He writes: “‘Carbon Ideologies’ largely neglects solar power, that being associated with decentralization and environmental benignity.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2018
Third, the benignity and violation have to be simultaneously interpreted; otherwise, the joke will fall flat.
From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2018
Her clear eyes, which were fixed upon him, beamed with an expression of indescribable benignity.
From The Danes Sketched by Themselves. Vol. I (of 3) A Series of Popular Stories by the Best Danish Authors by Various
One was a standard something-is-wrong-with-nature film that made monsters of benignities, the other a headlong black-comic attack on the nuclear threat.
From Time Magazine Archive
They are disturbing to look at, nightmarish, but most of them, oddly enough, are intended as lucky benignities.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
Many of the people shook hands with me at the door, and the bald old gentleman led me to his wife and daughter, whose benignities were almost parental.
From Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War by George Alfred Townsend
It did not occur to him that solitude to the great may be worth more than the benignities of a valet.
From The Gay Adventure A Romance by Richard Bird
There is nothing like surface-mining to snatch the graces and beauties and benignities out of a paradise, and make an odious and repulsive spectacle of it.
From Following the Equator, Part 3 by Mark Twain
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
