benefacture

plural benefactures

1. countableobsoleteuncountableAn act of doing good; benefaction, beneficence.

   True it is he was full of pious and charitable good works and bublick Benefactures in his latter dayes.

   1669, The Vulcano’s: Or, Burning and Fire-vomiting Mountains, Famous in the World: VVith their Remarkables, London: Printed by J. Darby, for John Allen; […], page 62; Collected for the moſt part out of [Athanasius] Kircher, Subterraneous World [Mundus Subterraneus], 1665

   3 more examples

   All theſe diſpoſitions are but incloſures; Give mee the open Champaine of a generall and illimited benefacture: Is he rich?

   1651, Jos[eph] Hall, “Soliloq[uy] XXVIII: Univerſall Intereſt”, in Susurrium cum Deo. Soliloqvies: Or, Holy Self-Conferences of the Devout Soul […], Second edition, London: Printed by Will[iam] Hunt, and are to be ſold by George Lathum junior, page 101

   Since, it is no ſmall greif to think, how this once apprized Gem is now depreciated; a diſcouragement to any ſuch kind of Benefacture.

   1776, [Editor], quoting a 1674 letter from Edmund Castell to John Spencer, “Additional Remarks”, in The Origin of Printing. In Two Essays […], Second edition, Supplement to The Origin of Printing, London: Printed for W. Bowyer and J. Nichols, published 1781, page 294

   A more sensible, well[-]intentioned benefacture could not have been devised, and it redounds all the more to the young man that in the will he considers himself to be only the almoner of his father, by whose business sagacity the handssome fortune was acquired.

   1879 January 4, “A Glance at the Winn Gallery in Woburn”, in Woburn Journal, volume 29, number 1, Woburn, Mass., page 2

   Antonyms: malefacture