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involve in darkness; to shroud with the shades of night; to obscure. [Archaic] The clouds benight the sky. Garth.

The condition of being benighted.

Of a kind or gentle disposition; gracious; generous; favorable; benignant. Creator bounteous and benign. Milton.

Benignant quality; kindliness.

Kind; gracious; favorable. -- Be*nig"nant*ly, adv.

The quality of being benign; goodness; kindness; graciousness. "Benignity of aspect." Sir W. Scott.

In a benign manner.

To take away. [Obs.] Ire . . . benimeth the man fro God. Chaucer.

Blessing; beatitude; benediction. Shak. More precious than the benison of friends. Talfourd.

A holy-water stoup. Shipley.

See Benzoin.

A descendant of Benjamin; one of the tribe of Benjamin. Judg. iii. 15.

riginally Asiatic; -- also called oil plant. From their seeds an oil is expressed, called benne oil, used mostly for making soap. In the southern United States the seeds are used in candy.

The common yellow-flowered avens of Europe (Geum urbanum); herb bennet. The name is sometimes given to other plants, as the hemlock, valerian, etc.

See Banshee.

imp. & p. p. of Bend.

Same as Bent, a kind of grass.

Relating to the deepest zone or region of the ocean.

Of or pertaining to Bentham or Benthamism.

That phase of the doctrine of utilitarianism taught by Jeremy Bentham; the doctrine that the morality of actions is estimated and determined by their utility; also, the theory that the sensibility to pleasure and the recoil from pain are the only motives which influence human desires and actions, and that these are the…