Benefaction

//bɛnɪˈfakʃ(ə)n// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An act of doing good; a benefit, a blessing. countable, uncountable

    "We all feel that sleep is a benefaction [translating Wohlthat] to our psychical life, and the obscure awareness of the popular mind is clearly unwilling to be robbed of its prejudice that the dream is one of the ways in which sleep confers its benefactions."

  2. 2
    an act intending or showing kindness and good will wordnet
  3. 3
    An act of charity; almsgiving. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    a contribution of money or assistance wordnet

Example

More examples

"We all feel that sleep is a benefaction [translating Wohlthat] to our psychical life, and the obscure awareness of the popular mind is clearly unwilling to be robbed of its prejudice that the dream is one of the ways in which sleep confers its benefactions."

Etymology

From Latin benefactiōnem, from benefacere (“to benefit”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.