The quality or state of being benevolent; the practice of showing kindness and helping others.
An alternative form of benevolence, created by adding the -cy suffix to create an abstract noun form. This variant emerged in the 17th century as English developed multiple ways to express related concepts.
Benevolency is essentially a more formal or archaic way of saying benevolence, but the existence of both words shows how English loves creating synonyms—sometimes they pick the fancier-sounding one for legal documents or philosophical writing.
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