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Appropriate; suitable; proper; fit; adequate. [R.] An ecclesiastical benefice . . . ought to be conferred on an idoneous person. Ayliffe.

The obtaining of benefice from Rome by solicitation, which benefice belonged to the disposal of the king or other lay patron of the realm.

The act of putting an ecclesiastical benefice in the hands of a layman, or lay corporation.

Tending to improve, beneficial; growing better. -- Im*prov"ing*ly, adv. Improving lease (Scots Law), an extend lease to induce the tenant to make improvements on the premises.

spiritual alliance by means of baptism or confirmation. (b) The act of a vicar, or other beneficiary, who holds two benefices, the one depending on the collation of the other.

The state of holding a benefice; the full possession and exercise of any office. These fines are only to be paid to the bishop during his incumbency. Swift.

A person who is in present possession of a benefice or of any office. The incumbent lieth at the mercy of his patron. Swift.

To introduce, as to a benefice or office; to put in actual possession of the temporal rights of an ecclesiastical living, or of any other office, with the customary forms and ceremonies. The prior, when inducted into that dignity, took an oath not to alienate any of their lands. Bp. Burnet.

The introduction of a clergyman into a benefice, or of an official into a office, with appropriate acts or ceremonies; the giving actual possession of an ecclesiastical living or its temporalities.

The person who inducts another into an office or benefice.

To invest with the spiritual charge of a benefice, or the care of souls. Blackstone.

ment or agency; as means to an end. South. They will argue that the end being essentially beneficial, the means become instrumentally so. Burke.

Favorable; mild; gentle; auspicious; beneficent. In soft silence shed the kindly shower. Pope. Should e'er a kindlier time ensue. Wordsworth.

of being kind, in any of its various senses; manifestation of kind feeling or disposition beneficence. I do fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. Shak. Unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Wordsworth.

the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason. Coke. Law is beneficence acting by rule. Burke. And sovereign Law, that state's collected will O'er thrones and globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. Sir W. Jones.

The benefice of a clergyman; an ecclesiastical charge which a minister receives. [Eng.] He could not get a deanery, a prebend, or even a living Macaulay. Livng room, the room most used by the family.

ally, a person to whom the pope has, by his prerogative, given a mandate or order for his benefice. Ayliffe.

ng an ordinary collator to put the person therein named in possession of the first vacant benefice in his collation.

Of or pertaining to Ahura-Mazda, or Ormuzd, the beneficent deity in the Zoroastrian dualistic system; hence, Zoroastrian.

Compassionate treatment of the unfortunate and helpless; sometimes, favor, beneficence. Luke x. 37.