The Latin word benevŏlus came to our language as benevolent . It is an adjective that allows you to describe someone who is kind, affectionate, friendly or, at least, not harmful .
Many times the term is used to refer to what could be harder or more difficult but, nevertheless, ends up being pious or compassionate . For example : “The school director was benevolent and only warned the students who wrote rude phrases on the facade of the school” , “The team has a benevolent calendar between now and the end of the year” , “The weather is not being benevolent to the rural producers of this region.”
Let's take the case of the draw that determines how the national teams that will participate in the Soccer World Cup will be distributed into different groups . If a team has to share the group with the last world champion, the current American champion and a European power, it can be said that the draw was not kind to it. On the other hand, for the team that remains in the same group as three countries without football tradition or recent achievements, the draw was benevolent .
Benevolence is also associated with kindness , magnanimity and mercy . Suppose a man catches a child stealing. The subject, instead of calling the police to determine how to act or trying to contact the child's parents, is benevolent and seeks to understand the reasons that led the boy to steal. Thus he begins to talk to him and explains that his actions were wrong.
Before continuing, let's look at certain curiosities about the definitions that the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary offers us for this and other related terms. Regarding benevolent , it tells us that it is an adjective used to describe someone who is "sympathetic toward others and their works," or who "has good will toward them." But then we can take a look at benevolent , another adjective generally found synonymous with the first; Here the RAE tells us that it means "favorable" or "having benevolence." This last term, for its part, is presented as the "benevolent quality."
It is a somewhat confusing circle, which leads us to think about the large number of terms that could be merged in our language with the purpose of simplifying its use and, unintentionally, enhancing the richness of our communication. Having so many synonyms whose meanings are so similar is not always beneficial , because it pushes us to make mistakes in order not to incur redundancy: synonyms are not always interchangeable in any context, but their differences can be very subtle and this makes them difficult to correct. use.
Having said all this, we can turn once again to some of the examples presented in previous paragraphs to analyze the meaning that we have given to the term benevolent and verify that its use is correct. We can say that the man who decides not to call the police after witnessing the boy's act of vandalism is indeed benevolent, as he shows good will and understanding towards him. However, both the school principal who dictates a light sanction and the weather that does not spoil the harvest include the nuance of "favorable", something that we find in the definition of benevolent .
Of course, this does not indicate that they are not synonyms, but rather that in some cases one is preferred over the other. Let's look at more synonyms below: magnanimous, indulgent , clement, affable, affectionate, benign, kind, generous, accommodating and liberal . Regarding its antonyms, we can mention uncompromising, evil and malevolent .