What does humanitarian mean?
Word: Humanitarian
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Humanitarian means working to ease suffering and improve people's lives, especially after natural disasters; as a noun, a person who does this work.
Synonyms: compassionate, humane, benevolent
Antonyms: cruel, inhumane
How do you spell humanitarian?
Syllables: hu - man - i - tar - i - an
Tricky part: After human comes an i, just as in humanity; students often write humanatarian.
Watch out for: humanatarian, humanetarian
Memory tip: Start from humanity: its first seven letters stay exactly as they are at the start of humanitarian.
Humanitarian in a sentence
Example 1: The Red Cross sent humanitarian aid to the flood-hit villages.
Example 2: She left her bank job to do humanitarian work in the tea gardens of Assam.
Example 3: Many humanitarian groups train local people to run first-aid camps.
Fun Fact
World Humanitarian Day is marked every year on 19 August, when the United Nations honours aid workers around the world.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
Only one of these words is spelt correctly. Choose its meaning:
1. sheltar 2. volenteer 3. medecine 4. humanitarian
a) a place that gives cover from bad weather
b) concerned with easing the hardship of others
c) a person who offers to work without being paid
d) a substance taken to treat an illness
Show answer
b) concerned with easing the hardship of others. Volenteer has the wrong vowel after the l, sheltar the wrong vowel before the r, and medecine an e where an i belongs.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word humanitarian as used in the sentence:
Her humanitarian work with homeless families in Pune earned her an award last year.
a) selfish
b) charitable
c) military
d) political
Show answer
b) charitable. Her work helped people in need, which is what charitable means.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
After the cyclone, a humanitarean team arrived with tents, blankets and clean drinking water for the families sheltering in the school building.
a) cyclone
b) drinking
c) blankets
d) humanitarean
Show answer
d) humanitarean. Like librarian, the word ends in arian, so humanitarean has an e where an a belongs.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the letters in the sentence to form a meaningful word:
The charity runs a large naitriaumnah programme that feeds thousands of children every day.
a) vegetarian
b) authoritarian
c) humiliation
d) humanitarian
Show answer
d) humanitarian. Twelve letters with three a's and no o: authoritarian and humiliation both need an o, and vegetarian needs a v.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A humanitarian is a person who ____.
a) helps strangers through difficult times
b) designs tall buildings in cities
c) studies the bones of early humans
d) writes the history of old kingdoms
Show answer
a) helps strangers through difficult times
2. Humanitarian aid is usually sent to ____.
a) the richest cities in the world
b) banks that want to lend more money
c) villages hit by drought and poor harvests
d) factories that need new machines
Show answer
c) villages hit by drought and poor harvests
