Philanthropist

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who loves humankind in general.
  2. 2
    someone who makes charitable donations intended to increase human well-being wordnet
  3. 3
    A person or institution who seeks to improve the world, especially by monetary gifts.

    "[…]and with a passing vague wonder as to what manner of man the ‘philanthropist’ might be who had more money than he knew what to do with,[…]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
almoneralmsgiveraltruistangelassignorawarder

Example

More examples

"Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."

Etymology

From philanthropy + -ist; compare French philanthrope.

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