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benefactor

Every school, museum, and struggling artist is in search for a generous benefactor, or someone to provide the financial means to keep everything running smoothly.

The Latin roots of benefactor are bene, which means "well," and facere, which means "to do" — literally, "to do well." A benefactor does well by supporting (usually financially) a person or a good cause. In the old days, a struggling artist or actor might have been supported by a wealthy benefactor. Now, many struggling artists and actors have to rely on waiting tables and other odd jobs instead.

DEFINITIONS OF: benefactor

n a person who helps people or institutions (especially with financial help)

Synonyms:: helper

Examples:: show 13 examples...; hide 13 examples...; Andrew Carnegie
United States industrialist and philanthropist who endowed education and public libraries and research trusts (1835-1919); Peter Cooper
United States industrialist who built the first American locomotive; founded Cooper Union in New York City to offer free courses in the arts and sciences (1791-1883); Ezra Cornell
United States businessman who unified the telegraph system in the United States and who in 1865 (with Andrew D. White) founded Cornell University (1807-1874); Solomon Guggenheim
United States philanthropist; son of Meyer Guggenheim who created several foundations to support the arts (1861-1949); John Harvard
American philanthropist who left his library and half his estate to the Massachusetts college that now bears his name (1607-1638); Milton Snavely Hershey
United States confectioner and philanthropist who created the model industrial town of Hershey, Pennsylvania; founded an industrial school for orphan boys (1857-1945); Johns Hopkins
United States financier and philanthropist who left money to found the university and hospital that bear his name in Baltimore (1795-1873); Andrew William Mellon
United States financier and philanthropist (1855-1937); Alfred Bernhard Nobel
Swedish chemist remembered for his invention of dynamite and for the bequest that created the Nobel prizes (1833-1896); First Viscount Nuffield
British industrialist who manufactured automobiles and created a philanthropic foundation (1877-1963); John Davison Rockefeller
United States industrialist who made a fortune in the oil business and gave half of it away (1839-1937); Commodore Vanderbilt
United States financier who accumulated great wealth from railroad and shipping businesses (1794-1877); Elihu Yale
English philanthropist who made contributions to a college in Connecticut that was renamed in his honor (1649-1721)

Types:: show 33 types...; hide 33 types...; benefactress
a woman benefactor; bondsman, bondswoman
someone who signs a bond as surety for someone else; bestower, conferrer, donor, giver, presenter
person who makes a gift of property; donor
(medicine) someone who gives blood or tissue or an organ to be used in another person (the host); fairy godmother
a generous benefactor; good Samaritan
a person who voluntarily offers help or sympathy in times of trouble; do-gooder, humanitarian, improver
someone devoted to the promotion of human welfare and to social reforms; liberator
someone who releases people from captivity or bondage; accommodator, obliger
someone who performs a service or does a favor; offerer, offeror
someone who presents something to another for acceptance or rejection; patron, sponsor, supporter
someone who supports or champions something; provider
someone who provides the means for subsistence; deliverer, rescuer, savior, saviour
a person who rescues you from harm or danger; sparer
someone who refrains from injuring or destroying; uncle
a source of help and advice and encouragement; christ, messiah
any expected deliverer; abnegator
one who gives up or relinquishes or renounces something; almsgiver
a person who gives alms; angel, backer
invests in a theatrical production; blood donor
someone who gives blood to be used for transfusions; emancipator, manumitter
someone who frees others from bondage; godfather
someone having a relation analogous to that of a male sponsor to his godchild; godparent
a person who sponsors someone (the godchild) at baptism; guarantor, surety, warranter, warrantor
one who provides a warrant or guarantee to another; Indian giver
an offensive term for someone who asks you to return a present he has given you; organ donor
someone from whom an organ is taken for transplantation; patroness, patronne
a woman who is a patron or the wife of a patron; altruist, philanthropist
someone who makes charitable donations intended to increase human well-being; settlor, trustor
(law) a person who creates a trust by giving real or personal property in trust to a trustee for the benefit of a beneficiary; a person who gives such property is said to settle it on the trustee; contributor, subscriber
someone who contributes (or promises to contribute) a sum of money; subsidiser, subsidizer
someone who assists or supports by giving a subsidy; tipper
a person who leaves a tip; pillar of strength, tower of strength
a person who can be relied on to give a great deal of support and comfort

Type of:: good person
a person who is good to other people

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