Bēn'e-fice, n.
n. [Fr. bénéfice, Pr. benefíci, Lat. beneficium, from beneficus, beneficent, from bene, well, and facere, to do.]
Sense 1. Life, a benefit, advantage, or kindness.
Sense 2. An ecclesiastical living; a church endowed with a revenue for the maintenance of divine service, or the revenue itself.
☞— All church preferments are called benefices, except bishoprics, which are called dignities. But, ordinarily, the term dignity is applied to bishoprics, deaneries, arch-deaconries, and prebendaries: and benefice to parsonages, vicarages, and donatives. In the middle ages, benefice was used for a fee, or an estate in lands, granted at first for life only, and held ex mero beneficio of the donor. The estate afterward, becoming hereditary, took the appellation of feud, and benefice became appropriated to church livings. Encyc. Brit.