English Vocabulary: Words Starting With Bene-

A prayer that asks for God's blessing, especially a prayer that concludes a worship service.

Someone who helps another person or group, especially by giving money.

A person or organization that benefits or is expected to benefit from something, especially one that receives money or property when someone dies.

Kindness, generosity.

Friendly, peaceful.

Charmed or fascinated; inflamed with love.

Having or showing strong feelings of attraction or love.

A lover, often secret, not allowed by law or custom.

Existing before a war, especially before the American Civil War (1861-65).

Warlike, aggressive, quarrelsome.

Aggressiveness, combativeness.

Open defiance and opposition, sometimes armed, to a person or thing in authority.

(1) To soothe anger or agitation. (2) To subdue by armed action.

A person opposed to war or violence, especially someone who refuses to bear arms or to fight, on moral or religious grounds.

An agreement between two or more people or groups; a treaty or formal agreement between nations to deal with a problem or to resolve a dispute.

Contrary to the opinion of.

The study of crime, criminals, law enforcement, and punishment.

To remove or reduce the criminal status of.

To show evidence of involvement in a crime or a fault.

(1) An accusation in answer to an accusation made against oneself. (2) The making of such an accusation.

A formal or official act of approving; praise, usually given with pleasure or enthusiasm.

The process of proving in court that the will of someone who has died is valid, and of administering the estate of a dead person.

Absolute honesty and uprightness.

A person of thoroughly bad character.

(1) Requiring serious thought or concern. (2) Serious and formal in appearance or manner.

Great or very dignified seriousness.

To move or be drawn toward something, especially by natural tendency or as if by an invisible force.

(1) To make (an injury, problem, etc.) more serious or severe. (2) To annoy or bother.

To lighten, lessen, or relieve, especially physical or mental suffering.

(1) The height of a place. (2) The act or result of lifting or raising someone or something.

A long piece of wood, metal, etc., that sticks out from a wall to support something above it.

Lack of appropriate seriousness.

A guide, especially one who takes tourists to museums, monuments, or architectural sites and explains what is being seen.

To bully or harass by bluster or personal pressure.

An attitude or way of life based on the idea that pleasure or happiness should be the chief goal.

A senior figure or leader in one's field.

Marked by simplicity, avoidance of luxury, and often strict self-discipline or self-denial.

Extremely loud, often with especially deep richness of sound.

Seemingly indifferent to pleasure or pain.

Marked by a luxurious or sensual way of life.

A mental illness in which a person has a strong desire to steal things.

A person with an extreme and uncontrollable desire for alcohol.

A mental disorder marked by feelings of great personal power and importance.

Someone who is extremely self-centered and ignores the problems and concerns of others.

Soul, personality, mind.

(1) Of or relating to a drug (such as LSD) that produces abnormal and often extreme mental effects such as hallucinations. (2) Imitating the effects of psychedelic drugs.

Caused by mental or emotional problems rather than by physical illness.

One who treats mental or emotional disorder or related bodily ills by psychological means.

(1) The act of receiving. (2) A social gathering where guests are formally welcomed.

To stop, seize, or interrupt (something or someone) before arrival.

Noticeable or able to be felt by the senses.

(1) Open to some influence; responsive. (2) Able to be submitted to an action or process.

(1) To keep (someone or something) within limits. (2) To hold (someone) in a location.

(1) Authoritative and final. (2) Specifying perfectly or precisely.

Having definite limits.

Extremely or immeasurably small.

To interrupt a conversation with a comment or remark.

To guess.

An estimate of what might happen in the future based on what is happening now.

The curved path that an object makes in space, or that a thrown object follows as it rises and falls to earth.

The friction that allows a moving thing to move over a surface without slipping.

(1) To pull back (something) into something larger. (2) To take back (something said or written).

Drawn out, continued, or extended.

Not easily handled, led, taught, or controlled.

Tending to promote, encourage, or assist; helpful.

(1) Subtraction. (2) The reaching of a conclusion by reasoning.

(1) Persuade, influence. (2) Bring about.

(1) Temptation to sin, especially temptation to sexual intercourse. (2) Attraction or charm.

(1) Arranged in order or in a series. (2) Following in a series.

Following in time, order, or place; later.

(1) Resulting. (2) Important.

A statement that does not follow logically from anything previously said.

Harmonious, ordered, rational, calm.

Frenzied, orgiastic.

Unclear, ambiguous, or confusing.

Frenzied, delirious.

Jolly, good-natured.

Having rapid and unpredictable changes of mood.

Lofty, superior, and detached.

Having to do with sexual intercourse or diseases transmitted by it.

(1) Doubtful or uncertain especially from being obscure or indistinct. (2) Unclear in meaning because of being understandable in more than one way.

Existing or present on all sides.

(1) Holding opposite feelings and attitudes at the same time toward someone or something. (2) Continually wavering between opposites or alternative courses of action.

The range or limit covered by something (such as a law).

The final section after the main part of a book or play.

A plant that obtains its nutrients from the air and the rain and usually grows on another plant for support.

An inscription on a grave or tomb in memory of the one buried there.

(1) A descriptive word or phrase occurring with or in place of the name of a person or thing. (2) An insulting or demeaning word or phrase.

A person overly concerned with his or her own health who often suffers from delusions of physical disease.

Abnormal decrease of sugar in the blood.

Subnormal temperature of the body.

(1) Involving an assumption made for the sake of argument or for further study or investigation. (2) Imagined for purposes of example.

(1) Of, relating to, or caused by heat. (2) Designed to insulate in order to retain body heat.

Physics that deals with the mechanical actions or relations of heat.

Of or relating to the changes in the nucleus of atoms with low atomic weight, such as hydrogen, that require a very high temperature to begin.

The quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit at a specified temperature.

(1) A sea invertebrate that has a mouth opening at one end surrounded by stinging tentacles. (2) A growth projecting from a mucous membrane, as on the colon or vocal cords.

(1) One who can speak or write several languages. (2) Having or using several languages.

A chemical compound formed by a reaction in which two or more molecules combine to form larger molecules with repeating structural units.

An instrument for recording changes in several bodily functions (such as blood pressure and rate of breathing) at the same time; lie detector.