Word.ws English Dictionary

benefices

benefices is the plural of benefice.

Meaning of benefice

Noun

benefice (plural benefices)

  1. Land granted to a priest in a church that has a source of income attached to it.
    • If after long expectation, much expense, travel, earnest suit of ourselves and friends, we obtain a small benefice at last, our misery begins afresh […]1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC
  2. (obsolete) A favour or benefit.
  3. (feudal law) An estate in lands; a fief.

See all 4 meanings of benefice

Questions about benefices

What is benefices the plural of?
Benefices is the plural of benefice.

Words near benefices in the dictionary

  1. beneficencies
  2. beneficency
  3. beneficent
  4. beneficential
  5. beneficently
  6. benefices
  7. beneficia
  8. beneficial
  9. beneficial insect
  10. beneficial insects
  11. beneficial owner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: benefices (page history and authors); benefice (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “benefices.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/benefices. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.