benignant — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Kind; gracious; favorable.

   Usage

   • Archaic

   Examples

   Here Nature appears in her richest attire, and Art, dressed with the modestest simplicity, attends her benignant mistress.

   More examples (2)

   And in the silence of the midnight trance, In snowy robe she comes to cheer my sight; So holy, so benignant is her glance, Her brow so placid,—and her eye so bright,...

   The most idiotic medicaster, when he had named, or, as they term it, diagnosticated a typhoid fever, found himself upon a level with the medical celebrities of the epoch. […] If the patient died, that was perfectly simple: he had a typhoid fever to which he was inevitably doomed to succumb! If he recovered, what a noble triumph for the medicaster, even when he had perhaps arbitrarily imposed the name of typhoid upon a simple and benignant fever, as is constantly done!

   General Peckem roused himself after a moment with an unctuous and benignant smile.

Adjective

1. pleasant and beneficial in nature or influence

   Synonyms

   benign

   Examples

   a benign smile

   the benign sky

   More examples (1)

   the benign influence of pure air

2. characterized by kindness and warm courtesy especially of a king to his subjects

   Synonyms

   gracious

   Examples

   our benignant king