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Benignly   /bənˈaɪnli/   Listen
Benignly

adverb
1.
In a benign manner.  Synonym: benignantly.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Benignly" Quotes from Famous Books



... an excuse to leave my place and consult a Directory, in the hopes of shaking him off, but there he was when I returned, ready to go on as benignly as ever. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... came from regions of the rising sun: Scorning the temples built by mortal hand, We worshipp'd God—one God—the Immense, All-Just: That worship was the worship of great hearts: Duty was worship then: that God received it: I know not if benignly He received; If God be Love I know not. This I know, God loves not priest that under roofs of gold Lifts, in his right hand held, the Sacrifice; The left, behind him, fingering for the dole. King of East Anglia's realm, the primal Truths Are vanished from our Faith: the ensanguined ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... The Chief said benignly: "H'm.... I'm gonna be in charge of the engine room, an' Haney'll be bos'n—let Joe try to take off without us!—an' that don't leave you a rating, Mike, unless you're willin' to be ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... quite a social occasion. None of our guests was in the least ill at ease; in fact, the young ladies were quite coy and flirtatious. We had a great many jokes. Each of the little ladies received a handful of prevailing beads. M'booley smiled benignly at these delightful femininities. After a time he led us to the edge of the hill and showed us his houses across the cation, perched on a flat about halfway up the wall. They were of the usual grass-thatched construction, but rather larger ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... something. Into his mind rushed the details of a certain recent conversation in which he had indulged with his closest chum, Thad Stevens. Again he saw the picture of that good priest of the story, looking so benignly upon the wretched Jean Valjean, brought into his presence with the valuable silver candlesticks and spoons found in his possession, which he kept insisting his late host had presented him with, however preposterous the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... peculiar grace, The heritage of Nature's noblest race, There is a spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, While, in his softened looks, benignly blend The sire, the son, the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... English author benignly, 'it is satisfactory to hear that. Of course, the great difference between there and here is that in New York one impresses: ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... Indian chiefs were smiling. Old Horse, the Navajo, beamed benignly upon this daughter of the friend of the Indians. Silver, his brother chieftain, nodded as if he understood Bostil's pride and regret. Some of the young riders showed their hearts in their eyes. Farlane tried to look mysterious, to pretend he ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... her, seeking to draw her from the shadow, when her uncle suddenly interposed himself between us and took a book from the table. Drawing the settee closer to the light, he opened the great volume across his knees and adjusted his spectacles. Throwing back his head and looking at me benignly from under his glasses, he said: "It's peculiarly fortunate you come to-night, Mark. When you knocked I was readin' aloud to Mary. We read together every night now, her and me, and most ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... a small, square bottle, ovally labeled with the engraving of a countenance full of soft pity as that of the Romish-painted Madonna, the herb-doctor passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning this way and ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... phalanxes, and beyond the rim of trees began the country that was ruled by the priests of another faith. He vaguely remembered, too, that the Catholics had showed sometimes a certain hostility towards the little Protestant oasis that flourished so quietly and benignly in their midst. He had quite forgotten this. How trumpery it all seemed now with his wide experience of life and his knowledge of other countries and the great outside world. It was like stepping back, not ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... has an aching void in his heart that weighs just one hundred and thirty-six pounds, lacking now I believe one and three-quarters pounds plus three muffins and a half chicken. How can you be so heartless?" The major bent a benignly stern glance upon her which she returned ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... smiling benignly. He had drawn the will. He knew that it was sound, if not "slick," as Simmy had described it. The three Tresslyns leaned forward in their chairs, bewildered, dumbfounded. Their gaze was fixed on the shaking figure of ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... supremely unconscious air, as though he believed there was no one in the conservatory. There was nothing professorial about his appearance, except his great spectacles, through which he gazed benignly at the luxuriant growth of plants, as he advanced, his hands in the pockets of his plaid shooting-coat. He was dressed as any other man might be in the country; he had selected an unostentatious plaid for the material of his ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... not grudge his luxurious ease to the great statesman who sate in the corner, with an evening paper propped up on a silver dish, and some iced compound bubbling pleasantly in his glass, smiling benignly at a caricature of himself. He, at all events, paid for his comforts by unremitting labour. But what of the sleek and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike, and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly enviable—nay! the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously ethereal, and, as it were, the most pretty (if I may use so bold an expression) thing (pardon me, gentle reader!) in the world—but I am always led away by my feelings. In such a mind, I repeat, what a host of recollections ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... gods benignly gave, To light a lover on his way; Thou, Moon! along the silv'ry wave, Ah! safe ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... said Gyda. 'When my lady came here before? That was not for him to know. That was only me alone. To-day my lady will tell him about, when she pleases.' And Gyda smiled over this statement benignly. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... with the spinster's charming awkwardness, yet with instinctive feminine security, about the hall, while the little girls in pigtails, daughters of the house, followed like adoratory angels in an altar-piece, and the old peasant-woman looked benignly on, a myriad-wrinkled St. Elizabeth. Aristide had seen Jean dandled by dozens of women during their brief comradeship; he had thought little of it, as it was the natural thing for women to do; but when this sweet English lady mothered Jean it seemed to matter a great deal. She lifted Jean and himself ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... be that Golden—that selfsame, dear, pensive face, those eyes, benignly and sweetly mild, and that heart-dissolving voice, have escaped so many storms, so many dangers? Was it love for me that led you from the extremity of the world? and have you, indeed, brought back with you a heart full of "ineffable ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... envy to the loungers, and of fresh gossip to Strudle Bad. It struck him less pleasantly that two dark faces, which had been previously regarding him in the gloom of the corridor and vanished as he approached, reappeared some moments later in Yerba's salon as Don Caesar and Dona Anna, with a benignly different expression. Dona Anna especially greeted him with so much of the ostentatious archness of a confident and forgiving woman to a momentarily recreant lover, that he felt absurdly embarrassed in Yerba's presence. He was thinking how he could excuse himself, when he noticed a beautiful basket ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... benignly at the young enthusiast. "Brother Edouard is right," he said. "Poor Martin was to be compassioned. None the less, my heart is touched for the girl. In Banin's trial it appeared that he maltreated her, and forced her to do what she did by blows. They were really married. Her neighbors ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... across the road, and mechanically touched his cap. The old gentleman stood beaming benignly ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton

... secretary of state, and had put it into cipher. Adieu! I am neither, dead of my fever nor apoplexy, nay, nor of the House of Commons. I rather think the violent heat of the latter did me good. Lady Ailesbury was at court yesterday, and benignly received;(365) a circumstance you ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... maiden strove valiantly with the accent of her birth and that of her rearing, and mamma smiled benignly in the background. ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... the long-closed house, and photographs of the various police officials. That of Guertin, however, was not included. The famous investigator of crime had no wish for the picture of his face, with its eyes beaming benignly through his gold glasses, ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... his chair, smiling benignly, while he watched the bewilderment on all their faces. Ted, Phyllis, and Leslie were striving to hide this, under a polite assumption of intense gratitude, though they were a bit puzzled as to why he should choose them, of all people, who had no very ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... haggling lend or sell: perchance the price Will counterveil the boon. Consider this. Now rise and look upon me." And she rose, But by her stood no godhead bathed in light, But young Amphryssius, herdsman to the king, Benignly smiling. Fleet as thought, the god Fled from the glittering earth to blackest depths Of Tartarus; and none might say he sped On wings ambrosial, or with feet as swift As scouring hail, or airy chariot Borne by the flame-breathing steeds ethereal; ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... malicious glee Her merciless vocation plies, Benignly smiling now on me, Now on another, bids him rise, And in mere wantonness of whim Her favours shifts from me ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... would regard him with an open stare expressive of a desire to enjoy that which was said if the point of the joke could by any possibility be indicated to him. At other times a demure Pennsylvania Quaker would benignly survey the poor lecturer with a look of benevolent pity; and on one occasion, when my friend was lecturing at Peoria, an elderly lady, accompanied by her two daughters, left the room in the midst of the lecture, exclaiming, as she passed me at the door, "It is too bad ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... nonsense, you son of a donkey," I broke in, for at this moment old Father Christmas, smiling more benignly than before, re-appeared from the kloof into which he had vanished and advanced towards us ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... in as quietly as if nothing had happened. He greeted the Secretary cordially and smiled benignly ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... clear them up later," said the great detective, smiling benignly at his thumbs, which he was revolving slowly about each other as he ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... Fanny's amazement. "He is the meanest human being in all the world. But he's making the mistake of his life, isn't he, Aunt Fanny? Oh, of course you don't know what it is, so never mind. We've got a surprise for him. I'll see him at eleven o'clock, and then—" she smiled quite benignly at the thought of what she was going to say to him. Beverly felt very secure in the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... hemispheres, from one Arctic Sea to another, Siberia, China, the Malay Archipelago, this, that, and the other odd corner of the world. Always they sat placidly side by side, either in the saloon or on deck, smiling benignly, and conversing in spaced, comfortable syllables with everybody who happened along. Mrs. Breemen worked industriously on some kind of feminine gear, and explained to all and sundry that she travelled "to see de ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... the Baron von Habelschwert walked only fifteen yards behind the prince. He smiled benignly on the destruction of the castles; plainly he felt that his young charge was treating the so-soon-to-be-subjugated ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... the unrevealed want that had become clamorous in her soul; it was the promise of a bright revelation yet to come; her heart was being unfolded to the sunshine, leaf by leaf, and God's angels might have smiled benignly as they watched the development of good in that little soul, amid the depressing atmosphere that ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... lie in bed at night or am out walking alone—everywhere I hear this sound, and my heart rejoices. And the earth, too—I know it—weary of injustice and sorrow, rings out like a bell, responding to the call, and trembles benignly, greeting the new sun arising in ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... wish to snatch him in her arms and kiss him. He only knew that she had big eyes and a thin face and thin legs and a common basket and poor clothes. So he put his hand in his pocket and found his sixpence and walked up to her benignly. ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a hand that trembled with anxiety, and with anxiety stamped upon his benignly rotund ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... understand, because such a person has the intention of offering prayer and praise to God, and that intention suffices. Moreover, the Church's precept of reciting the office should he interpreted benignly, otherwise it must give rise to many scruples; for, companions in recitation, then, always, should be anxious as to the duty of repetition or the non-fulfilled ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... benignly. He had the utmost respect for Mrs. Johnson's cook, and his own standard of social desirability, to which the object of ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim



Words linked to "Benignly" :   benign



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