beneficiary
noun
Did you know?
Beneficiary is often used in connection with life insurance, but it shows up in many other contexts as well. A college may be the beneficiary of a private donation. Your uncle's will may make a church his sole beneficiary, in which case all his money and property will go to it when he dies. A "third-party beneficiary" of a contract is a person (often a child) who the people signing the contract (which is usually an insurance policy or an employee-benefit plan) want to benefit from it. In a more general way, a small business may be a beneficiary of changes to the tax code, or a restaurant may be the beneficiary when the one across the street closes down and its whole lunch crowd starts coming in.
Examples of beneficiary in a Sentence
Liz Weston, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 Apr. 2024
For a half century, our country has offered no greater stimulus to our own inquisitiveness than George Will himself.
2024 marks Washington Post readers’ 50th anniversary as the first-crack beneficiaries of his singular wisdom and wit.
—Mitch Daniels, National Review, 3 Apr. 2024
Nvidia, which is seen as the major beneficiary of the AI boom, grew its revenues by 126% to $61 billion, and increased its net income nearly sixfold to $29.8 billion in its fiscal year 2024.
—Will Daniel, Fortune, 3 Apr. 2024
Also, be sure to make sure your beneficiaries are current.
—Becky Batcha and Hiranmayi Srinivasan, Parents, 29 Mar. 2024
While there is no guarantee that these companies will successfully integrate AI into their respective businesses, identifying firms willing to spend on R&D may be a way to find the next, less-obvious beneficiaries of the AI revolution.
—Sean Hanlon, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
This provision covers beneficiaries of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
—Saad B. Omer, The Mercury News, 27 Mar. 2024
And many would-be beneficiaries could have trouble with device tolerance.
—IEEE Spectrum, 22 Mar. 2024
Jackson-Davis and Kevon Looney, frequent beneficiaries of the action, each scored six in the first quarter.
—Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 30 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'beneficiary.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near beneficiary
Cite this Entry
“Beneficiary.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beneficiary. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationLegal Definition
beneficiary
noun
Note: A trust may provide for income to be paid to someone (as a spouse) for his or her lifetime and then for payment of the principal to another person. A trustee is sometimes allowed to distribute some of the principal of the trust to an income beneficiary when necessary for the support of the beneficiary if support of the beneficiary was the purpose of the trust.
called also secondary beneficiary
Key Pac. Mortg. Inc. v. Industrial Indem. Co., 845 P.2d 1087 (1993) 
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