humanitarian

 
Pronunciation: /hjʊˌmanɪˈtɛːrɪən/

adjective

  • concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare: groups sending humanitarian aid
  • denoting an event or situation which causes or involves widespread human suffering, especially one which requires the large-scale provision of aid: human rights groups have warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis

noun

  • a person who seeks to promote human welfare.

Derivatives

humanitarianism

noun

The primary sense of humanitarian is ‘concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare’. Since the 1930s a new sense, exemplified by phrases such as the worst humanitarian disaster this country has seen, has been gaining currency, and is now broadly established, especially in journalism, although it is not considered good style by all. In the Oxford English Corpus the second most common collocation of humanitarian is crisis.