What's the difference between benevolent and malevolent?

Benevolent


Definition:

  • (a.) Having a disposition to do good; possessing or manifesting love to mankind, and a desire to promote their prosperity and happiness; disposed to give to good objects; kind; charitable.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As I watched it, I thought of all the arguments over trade that we’ve had in this country since the early 1990s, all the sweet words from our economists about the scientifically proven benevolence of free trade, all the ways in which our newspapers mock people who say that treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement allow companies to move jobs to Mexico.
  • (2) Who would blame the man who wants to assure his own homeostasis and happiness only by accumulating the treasure of other poeple's benevolence and love?
  • (3) The Chinese government is depicted as benevolent, while the US government manages to be both sinister and useless – typified by the black-clad CIA operatives, one of whom gets beaten up by a Chinese character.
  • (4) And as someone who spent a lot of time with their grandmother, it seemed only natural that bank robbers would meet their match in a benevolent pensioner.
  • (5) The overall histologic appearance of the mesenchymal and epithelial components is benign, and preliminary clinical data suggest that the tumor has a benevolent course.
  • (6) On the benevolence dimension (e.g., trustworthiness, kindness), however, effectiveness interacted with age, such that for younger adults ineffective speakers were viewed significantly less positively than their more effective peers.
  • (7) So the idea of a benevolent dictator is not my cup of tea.” He conceded that Trump’s rise had affected his standing with voters.
  • (8) To the seven million citizens who watched Liu’s slow death in equal parts horror and grief, any remaining pretence that modern China is a benevolent paternal state that has moved beyond a brutal response to political debate has been shattered once and for all.
  • (9) This is not about benevolent indulgence but achievement of genuine equality in support and contribution.
  • (10) The remark evoked a defensive response from those wedded to the ephemeral virtues of the "confidence fairy" – and who are concerned to keep her benevolent figure hovering above Britain's severely weakened economy.
  • (11) A study of the sexual, benevolent and aggressive social interactions, of the authors of the acts, of the type of issues, of the intervention of chance and of the quality of emotions, as well, as of the diversity of the intervening people.
  • (12) Berkeley held that the moral duty of mankind was to obey God's laws; that--since God was a benevolent Creator--the object of His laws must be to promote the welfare and flourishing of mankind; and that, accordingly, humans could identify their moral duties by asking what system of laws for conduct would in fact tend to promote that object.
  • (13) Presented as a benevolent behemoth of fast-track regeneration, the Games were supposed to leave behind a shiny new world of 12,000 homes and 10,000 jobs, set amid the rolling hills of the largest new park in Europe.
  • (14) Shirk said one-party China – a country most still associate with little more than economic success and autocratic governance – saw a chance to rebrand itself as a benevolent great power acting in the common good.
  • (15) So the idea of a benevolent dictator is not my cup of tea Rand Paul Paul said polls became part of “a self-reinforcing news cycle because of the celebrity nature that goes on, on and on”, though he accepted that voters might “at a superficial level be attracted to bombast, insults, junior high sort of lobbing of verbal bombs that kind of stuff”.
  • (16) A large, intrusive government – however benevolent it claims to be – is not immune from the simple truth that centralized power threatens liberty.
  • (17) Students became less Authoritarian, less Benevolent, more inclined toward Mental Health Ideology, and less Social Restrictive.
  • (18) Beard told the New Yorker she had taken a similarly benevolent approach with another internet abuser who called her evil following her Question Time appearance.
  • (19) The recent history of South Africa according to FW de Klerk goes something like this: a white minority government, ruled by a series of benevolent dictators, was keen to devolve power to the black majority as equal partners.
  • (20) These tell less numerous dreams, which are shorter, less rich, heavier with aggressive events and painful sexuality and less provided with benevolence.

Malevolent


Definition:

  • (a.) Wishing evil; disposed to injure others; rejoicing in another's misfortune.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump ‘sways malevolently’ behind Hillary Clinton Instead, he began the night by assembling a group of women in a press conference to revisit alleged sexual assaults by Bill Clinton, before confronting his opponent hardest on her private email server.
  • (2) It is the sort of malevolent onslaught that has caused many hardened media pundits to quake.
  • (3) The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn’t even hire a lawyer to defend myself.” He took a lie detector and passed, Allen said, but Mia Farrow declined to do so.
  • (4) To study malevolent representations, earliest memories were reliably coded on scales of affect tone.
  • (5) To his enemies, Sechin is a malevolent figure, a Kremlin grey cardinal crossed with the Big Bad Wolf.
  • (6) These statements reveal outrageous malevolence regarding the values that define this European Union and, if pronounced by an official representative of the United States, they would have the potential to undermine seriously the transatlantic relationship that has, for the past 70 years, essentially contributed to peace, stability and prosperity on our continent.” Trump's focus on UK trade could sideline EU, Democrats fear Read more A letter from the leader of the Socialists and Democrats group, Gianni Pittella, describes Malloch’s statements as “shocking” and urges the EU institutions to treat him as a “persona non grata”.
  • (7) Health care providers must too often stand by helplessly as disinterested or malevolent relatives make these decisions, while caring, competent non-relatives are shut out of the decision-making process.
  • (8) Goodness knows how it would have turned out if I had played the part, but I would have been malevolent in a very different way.
  • (9) Devout Muslims consider it a sacrilege for infidels to depose a Muslim tyrant and occupy Muslim lands — no matter how well intentioned the infidels or malevolent the tyrant.
  • (10) Either that or they're twisting his injured leg malevolently as a form of torutre.
  • (11) Malevolent object relations as well as splitting have long been considered by psychodynamic theorists as central features of borderline personality disorder.
  • (12) Half of the indigenous faith healers and more than half of the babalawos we interviewed attributed non-congenital deafness to malevolent forces, while only 12.5% of the herbalists made this attribution.
  • (13) He added: "We have a solid duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran's leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions."
  • (14) Specifically, borderlines tend to understand human action as more highly motivated and human interaction as more malevolent in nature than do either depressive or normals.
  • (15) Nor, after the ban, it must be said, was Ali’s passing, nasty and vindictive side ever again in evidence, such as when he bullyingly and hurtfully “carried” the hapless, injured Patterson in 1965, or malevolently taunted to painful humiliation for the full 15 rounds Ernie Terrell, who had addressed Ali as Clay at the weigh-in at Houston in 1967.
  • (16) There was no rhyme, reason or research to suggest a fifth of disabled people should do without help, but plenty of malevolent accusations poured out from Duncan Smith's team.
  • (17) Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right EPP and an ally of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Guy Verhofstadt, who leads the liberal ALDE group, accused Malloch of “outrageous malevolence” towards “the values that define this European Union”.
  • (18) We should recognise his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence.
  • (19) While Dylan, her ex-protege, ex-boyfriend and the man with whom she will forever be linked, looks more like a malevolent troll every year, Baez, at 65, is radiant.
  • (20) Click here for the Paddington trailer There was a swift online reaction to the still image from the film pictured above, in which Paddington looks less like the harmlessly bumbling bear of Michael Bond's books and more a malevolent creature, disturbingly sentient enough to dress itself in a duffel coat.