benefit

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
benefit/ˈbenɪfɪt/

▶noun

• 1 an advantage or profit gained from something.

• 2 a payment made by the state or an insurance scheme to someone entitled to receive it, e.g. an unemployed person.

• 3 a public performance designed to raise money for a charity.

▶verb (benefits, benefiting or benefitting, benefited or benefitted) receive an advantage; profit.

■ bring advantage to.

– phrases
benefit of clergy

• 1 exemption of the English clergy and nuns from the jurisdiction of the ordinary civil courts (abolished in 1827).

• 2 ecclesiastical sanction or approval.

the benefit of the doubt a concession that a person or fact must be regarded as correct, if the contrary has not been proven.

– origin ME: from OFr. bienfet, from L. benefactum ‘good deed’, from bene facere ‘do good (to)’.