benighted

adjective

be·night·ed | \ bi-ˈnī-təd

, bē-\

Definition of benighted

1 : overtaken by darkness or night Benighted travellers … have seen his midnight candle glimmering.— W. B. Yeats

2 : existing in a state of intellectual, moral, or social darkness : unenlightened spreading their message among these poor benighted people a strange, benighted country

Other Words from benighted Synonyms & Antonyms More Example Sentences Learn More about benighted

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Examples of benighted in a Sentence

the poor benighted souls who do not know the joys of reading

Recent Examples on the Web

Detectives Hays and West are, of course—as is ever the case in police shows—regularly frustrated by department superiors, whose benighted ideas about crime-solving carry the day. — Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ, "‘True Detective’ Review: Grim, Gripping Entertainment," 10 Jan. 2019 Wiring benighted countries with not-the-latest technology is a very good business for Ericsson—and also the right thing to do. — Aaron Pressman, Fortune, "Data Sheet—How Verizon's New CEO Wants to Do Good, Not Just Do Well," 11 June 2018 The enormous yellow menu offers both milchig and fleishig, dairy and meat, but in my opinion only tourists and the benighted opt for meat. — David Remnick, Bon Appetit, "The Only Restaurant on the Upper West Side That Hasn’t Been Bettered Anywhere on Earth," 6 June 2018 Against the benighted church Galileo labored, alongside the other great thinkers of the sixteenth century who gave rise to our rational modern age. — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, "Did Math Kill God?," 27 Apr. 2018 With intricacy and humor, Van der Vliet Oloomi relays Zebra’s brainy, benighted struggles as a tragicomic picaresque whose fervid logic and cerebral whimsy recall the work of Bolaño and Borges. — Liesl Schillinger, New York Times, "Brainy and Benighted, Lost in the Books of Bolaño and Borges," 29 Mar. 2018 Check out this Instagram page where no fewer than three Women’s March leaders — Carmen Perez, Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour — gush over the benighted old bigot. — Andrew Sullivan, Daily Intelligencer, "The World Is Better Than Ever. Why Are We Miserable?," 9 Mar. 2018 From the provost’s office, conservative college students can appear a curious, benighted infestation, gadflies to be marveled at and handled with gardening gloves. — Grant Addison, National Review, "When College Presidents Mistake Lib-splaining for Conservative Outreach," 6 Feb. 2018 Could the benighted tech industry have hit on a better metaphor than a power outage? — Adam Lashinsky, Fortune, "That Metaphorically Appropriate Power Outage At CES," 11 Jan. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'benighted.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.