as in ignorant
lacking in education or the knowledge gained from books
the poor benighted souls who do not know the joys of reading
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Recent Examples of benighted
And this is just a small sampling of the kind of far-right legal reasoning that routinely escapes this benighted court.
—
Ian Millhiser, Vox, 25 Sep. 2024
In its 50th anniversary year, the storied fantasy role-playing game is now making a long-overdue, and noteworthy, correction to its scientifically benighted treatment of race.
—Steven Dashiell, Scientific American, 31 July 2024
Israel is the only bastion in this benighted region preventing Iran from taking control through its terrorist proxies.
—Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 27 July 2024
Many critics judge Elvis’s refusal to abandon a rural, working-class culture as backward and benighted, tempering his artistic success.
—Michael T. Bertrand, The Conversation, 5 June 2024
See All Example Sentences for benighted
Ian Millhiser, Vox, 25 Sep. 2024
In its 50th anniversary year, the storied fantasy role-playing game is now making a long-overdue, and noteworthy, correction to its scientifically benighted treatment of race.
—Steven Dashiell, Scientific American, 31 July 2024
Israel is the only bastion in this benighted region preventing Iran from taking control through its terrorist proxies.
—Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 27 July 2024
Many critics judge Elvis’s refusal to abandon a rural, working-class culture as backward and benighted, tempering his artistic success.
—Michael T. Bertrand, The Conversation, 5 June 2024
See All Example Sentences for benighted
Recent Examples of Synonyms for benighted
ignorant
Adjective
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The former Fox host Tucker Carlson, who opposed such an operation, sparred with two boosters: the current Fox host Mark Levin, and the Republican senator Ted Cruz, whom Carlson revealed to be ignorant of basic facts about Iran in a clip that went viral.—
Jon Allsop,
New Yorker,
27 June 2025
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Maybe LLMs get us 80% of the way there without any oversight, but skipping the context and being completely ignorant of what the machine is doing is typically not a good idea, partly for the reasons that the panelists laid out.—
John Werner,
Forbes.com,
19 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Benighted.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/benighted. Accessed 30 Jun. 2025.
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