benefice
Americannoun
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a position or post granted to an ecclesiastic that guarantees a fixed amount of property or income.
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the revenue itself.
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the equivalent of a fief in the early Middle Ages.
verb (used with object)
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benefices,
present (3rd person singular)
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beneficed,
past participle, past
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beneficing
present participle
noun
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Christianity an endowed Church office yielding an income to its holder; a Church living
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the property or revenue attached to such an office
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(in feudal society) a tenement (piece of land) held by a vassal from a landowner on easy terms or free, esp in return for military support See also vassalage
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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beneficesimple
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beneficessimple
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have beneficedperfect
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has beneficedperfect
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am beneficingprogressive
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are beneficingprogressive
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is beneficingprogressive
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have been beneficingperfect progressive
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has been beneficingperfect progressive
Past
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beneficedsimple
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had beneficedperfect
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was beneficingprogressive
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were beneficingprogressive
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had been beneficingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of benefice
1300–50; Middle English < Middle French < Latin beneficium service, kindness ( benefic ( us ) benefic + -ium -ium )
Vocabulary lists containing benefice
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:
The church, she says, is one of 15 in the benefice.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2023
The benefice of Middleton was merged with neighbouring Great Henny.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2023
Its marble lions gaze out with dignity over trash and traffic alike, and the lofty portico proclaims the institution's origins in the heady days of 19th century hope and public benefice.
From Time Magazine Archive
That it has taken the House until 1970 to bestow such a benefice on the electorate is a commentary in itself.
From Time Magazine Archive
A man could be a vassal without having a benefice, but rarely, at least after the eighth century, could he have a benefice without entering into the obligations of vassalage.
From A Source Book of Medi?val History Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the Renaissance by Frederic Austin Ogg
Some tycoons have crafted named benefices: the Broad and David Geffen foundations, for example.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2025
By signing the Act of Separation, 474 clergymen and professors surrendered the benefices they held under the Establishment.
From Time Magazine Archive
Through the appointment of bishops, deans and through the patronage of many benefices, it would be possible for the State to control the Church for its own purposes..
From Time Magazine Archive
Nearly 2,600 are benefices controlled by Anglican laymen as private patrons.
From Time Magazine Archive
So also did ecclesiastics, even those holding very small benefices.
From The Curiosities of Heraldry by Mark Antony Lower
Thirteen of the beneficed clergy were altogether bookless, though several of them possessed the baselard or dagger which church councils had forbidden in vain for centuries past; four more had only their Breviary.
From Chaucer and His England by G. G. Coulton
Spō′lium, the property of a beneficed ecclesiastic not transmissible by will.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
But it was when he found that two "beneficed Ministers," Casaubon and Glanvill, had "afresh espoused so bad a cause" that he had been impelled to review their grounds.
From A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 by Wallace Notestein
At the opening of this age, the beneficed clergy were often unfit for their posts; they were very largely indifferent to their duties.
From Social Transformations of the Victorian Age A Survey of Court and Country by T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet) Escott
The village called La Hermita, in whose temple is the venerated image of Nuestra Señora de Guia, is two musket-shots away from the walls of Manila, and is administered by a beneficed secular.
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.
