noun
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Etymology
Origin of benefactor
1425–75; late Middle English benefactour < Late Latin; see bene-, factor
Explanation
Every school, museum, and struggling artist is in search for a generous benefactor, or someone to provide the financial means to keep everything running smoothly. The Latin roots of benefactor are bene, which means "well," and facere, which means "to do" — literally, "to do well." A benefactor does well by supporting (usually financially) a person or a good cause. In the old days, a struggling artist or actor might have been supported by a wealthy benefactor. Now, many struggling artists and actors have to rely on waiting tables and other odd jobs instead.
Vocabulary lists containing benefactor
Take the Bad with the Good: Bene and Mal
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Giving Words
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Make Do: Fac
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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:
If the company could not rely on a benefactor like Inouye, it would develop a stable of them.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
When Cornelius Vanderbilt took steps to break up a railroad monopoly along the Hudson River in 1867, he was praised as a public benefactor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
“There are entrenched businesses like Salesforce that own a very proprietary set of data that make them much more formidable in this new era, and also probably a much bigger benefactor of the technology.”
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 30, 2026
Castro is remembered by supporters as having guided Cuba through multiple crises -- US-backed invasions, embargoes, assassination plots and the intense hardship caused by the collapse of Cuba's main ally and benefactor, the Soviet Union.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
An early benefactor was his twin brother, Monty, who had taken over the Dallas hotel empire their father built from a single Holiday Inn and who donated a three-story Victorian in a neighborhood near Brown.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
Nearly every state in the U.S. has a version of California’s slayer statute, which effectively disinherits beneficiaries who’ve “feloniously and intentionally” killed their benefactors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Putting their trust in the Canadian the Carvilles, along with a Portuguese family who had also become the benefactors of this random act of kindness, walked to the stadium.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
Supported by unnamed donors, he offers encouragement and religious-based morale boosts to politicians or their mutual benefactors.
From Salon ● Jun. 9, 2026
“I think the market is saying these financial companies are going to be the biggest benefactors of AI,” with margin and operational efficiency improvements, he said.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 4, 2026
I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
