It's the Word of the Day podcast for April 5th.
Today's word is benign, spelled B-E-N-I-G-N.
Benign is an adjective.
It describes something that does not cause harm or damage.
In medical contexts,
it's used to describe something that does not threaten life or health as in a benign tumor.
Additional meanings include mild and pleasant, as in benign weather conditions,
and showing kindness and gentleness as in a benign outlook.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the BBC.
The era of innocent tourism,
where it was seen as a benign and universally positive force, ended around 2015,
says Justin Francis, co-founder of Responsible Travel,
a UK-based travel agency specializing in ethical tourism.
In Europe and America, protests against overtourism are growing.
People are realizing their vacations can leave lasting impacts on others' homes.
The word benign traces back to the Latin adjective benignus, which was formed from bene,
meaning well, and the verb gignere, meaning to beget, that is, to produce or create.
Gignore is also the root of such English words as genius and germ,
and even shares distant ancestry with the word kin.
The meanings of benign range from describing an absence of danger or harm to that which shows kindness,