benison

If you say grace before a meal, you are saying a benison, or blessing. You can also be grateful for the benison of having your family around the table for a meal.

The word benison shares the Latin root benedictio with the word benediction, a spoken blessing usually over a group, and with the word benefit, a non-religious word meaning good thing brought from something else. In Italy, if something is very good, they say “Bene!” Got the meaning of this word? Bene!