What's the difference between benevolent and merciful?

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.

Merciful


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of mercy; having or exercising mercy; disposed to pity and spare offenders; unwilling to punish.
  • (a.) Unwilling to give pain; compassionate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The law and justice minister, Anisul Huq, said the 73-year-old leader was hanged after he refused to seek mercy from the country’s president.
  • (2) But if May rushes headlong into a panicked triggering of article 50 without a clear idea of what she wants out of negotiations, she will have left us at the mercy of 27 countries who have heard little but table-thumping and empty threats from ministers.
  • (3) He called for care for the environment to be added to the seven spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Gospel that the faithful are asked to perform throughout the pope’s year of mercy in 2016.
  • (4) But Ruby Tweedie, another local resident, said: "There have been so many doubts about his guilt that it's only fair that the man, who has only a few months to live, should be shown mercy."
  • (5) Constant ribbing about his private life was compromising Deayton's position as the show's "holier-than-thou" host, who showed no mercy towards politicians or celebrities caught in a similar position, the corporation added.
  • (6) The 70-year-old describes a life of comfortable detachment from mainstream society, but with long periods in which he and his 74-year-old wife, Shin-yeol, are at the mercy of the elements.
  • (7) We're kind of at Mother Nature's mercy at this point," said Tom Kruschke, another fire department spokesman .
  • (8) Without him, we were at the mercy of increasingly nervous investors, and our Hollywood film-making future hung in the balance.
  • (9) Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies.
  • (10) The mayor is a good person, but no one invited him, certainly not officially … The pope was furious.” While the prank provided fodder to critics of the mayor, it also underscored a more serious issue between the Vatican and Rome just a few months ahead of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December.
  • (11) The only mercy was they would have known little about it.
  • (12) After Hollande spent two hours on French radio in a patent relaunch of his presidency, a film producer announced that a biopic of Trierweiler’s revenge memoir, Merci Pour Ce Moment (Thank You For This Moment), is now in the works.
  • (13) Hunt replied: "Merci hopefully when consultation over we can have coffee like old days!"
  • (14) "The legal system has lost all sense of mercy and justice and it has been replaced with punitiveness and vindictiveness," Stinebrickner-Kauffman told Mail Online .
  • (15) If Whittingdale had any honour, any mercy, and any basic human decency, he would murder David Attenborough himself today, in his bed, to spare him any further suffering.
  • (16) It was not something that was talked about.” Thomson added: “It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised I quite simply couldn’t escape – because he was stronger than me, and there was no sense even initially of any sexual desire from him, which I suppose, looking back, again I find odd.” The MP said she had felt “absolutely numbed” and ashamed but told no one about the incident.
  • (17) Several survivors and family members of the victims who were flown to the US testified this week , and one cursed Bales for attacking villagers as some slept and others screamed for mercy.
  • (18) This meant that if the rebels started abusing people, the Misca would withdraw, leaving the civilian population at their mercy.
  • (19) Sitting in a side street listening to the sound of loud blasts and gunfire emanating from Nariman House, Rakash Bhaud, the local leader of the far-right Hindu party Shiv Sena, blamed the central government for the failures that, he said, had left them at the mercy of Pakistan-backed terrorists.
  • (20) More emphasis on mercy is needed in this case, surely, and less on killing.