beneficiary

American  

[ben-uh-fish-ee-er-ee, -fish-uh-ree] / ˌbɛn əˈfɪʃ iˌɛr i, -ˈfɪʃ ə ri /

noun

beneficiaries plural

1. a person or group that receives benefits, profits, or advantages.

2. a person designated as the recipient of funds or other property under a will, trust, insurance policy, etc.

3. Ecclesiastical. the holder of a benefice.

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beneficiary British  

/ ˌbɛnɪˈfɪʃərɪ /

noun

1. a person who gains or benefits in some way from something

2. law a person entitled to receive funds or other property under a trust, will, or insurance policy

3. the holder of an ecclesiastical or other benefice

4. a person who receives government assistance

   social security beneficiary

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adjective

1. of or relating to a benefice or the holder of a benefice

beneficiary Cultural  

1. The recipient of funds, property, or other benefits from an insurance policy, will, trust, or other settlement.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• prebeneficiary
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• beneficiaries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of beneficiary

First recorded in 1605–15; from Latin beneficiārius, from benefici(um) benefice + -ārius -ary

Explanation

A beneficiary is simply the recipient of money or other benefits. So when your big sister finally moves away to college and you get to move into her bigger bedroom? You become a lucky beneficiary. In other words — if you benefit from something, you are a beneficiary. This word pops up most commonly when people are creating their wills and trusts — you have to choose beneficiaries as the people who will get what you have when you die. But it isn't always so morbid. You can be the beneficiary of someone's kindness, the beneficiary of a good education, or even the beneficiary of your own hard work.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

beneficiary beneficiaries

Given your distant relationship with your former sister-in-law and the fact that your divorce was a difficult one, it seems unlikely that you were named as a beneficiary on her Fidelity account.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026

You have wills, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, long-term care insurance, organized records for your executor, and mutually agreed-upon beneficiary designations.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026

The company had been the beneficiary of a federal “loan guarantee” program that aimed to spur investment in experimental technologies that were unproven but could yield huge financial or climate dividends.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

Reporters programmatically extracted compensation tables, footnotes and other explanations of perquisites mentioned in the filings and fed the results to an LLM which parsed the amount, type and beneficiary of each perk.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026

To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know it, you also had to be the beneficiary of an extraordinary string of biological good fortune.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Badgering your sister now, when you know she doesn’t want to deal with this, could be enough for her to change her beneficiaries and her will.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 1, 2026

Fibre-optic cable producers have been among the biggest beneficiaries.

From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026

One of the investment bank’s analysts writes in a note that local refiners are key beneficiaries from the ensuing volatility, pointing to the impact on refining margins, trading opportunities and government policy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

The bonanza for most U.S. gas beneficiaries is likely to fade next year even if the Middle East stays dangerous.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Related Words

• heir
• recipient