benighted
Americanadjective
-
intellectually or morally ignorant; unenlightened.
benighted ages of barbarism and superstition.
- Synonyms:
- uncultivated, crude, primitive, backward
-
overtaken by darkness or night.
adjective
-
lacking cultural, moral, or intellectual enlightenment; ignorant
-
archaic overtaken by night
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of benighted
Explanation
Being called benighted is much like being called naive. It means lacking in knowledge or understanding—the kind you might have if you were older or more sophisticated. Although it sounds a lot like "being knighted", benighted has nothing to do with knights and, in fact, includes the word "night" (as in the opposite of day) and not "knight" (as in "of the Round Table"). One way to remember what benighted means is to think of a person "being nighted" or, put into the dark. A benighted person is in the dark about things: they don't know because they can't see. The Dark Ages are thought to have been a benighted time, full of primitive ideas.
Vocabulary lists containing benighted
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Once and Future King
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"On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s more like an existential dilemma, both for our bewildered and benighted country and for the world.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2026
A young woman from an island community on the brink of extinction sets out on an odyssey across the vastness of the Pacific, hoping to save the people of her benighted home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
The first two PMs in this benighted parliament – Barnier and Bayrou – took weeks to find.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2025
Most importantly, gays and lesbians had acquired a political voice; gay-bashing would no longer work for a political candidate as it had in the past, except perhaps in the most benighted corners of American society.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2025
Said Sullivan, “It soon became noticeable that he was progressively and grossly apologizing to the Eastern men for the presence of their benighted brethren of the West.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
