as in benighted
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Recent Examples of unenlightened
Dirty work is often assumed to be unenlightened work, but wildland firefighters have a unique empirical understanding of natural forces.
—
M. R. O’Connor, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2025
And the culprit doesn’t seem to be a small number of unenlightened appraisers.
—Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 8 July 2024
Some are downright funky in their retro prejudices, others more quaintly unenlightened.
—Lauren Bravo, refinery29.com, 3 Jan. 2024
Most gratifying in Newnham’s investigation is how Hite reclaimed her own positive sense of self in exile through some key female friendships: a love goddess finding refuge with like-minded souls after a bruising battle with unenlightened, resentful mortals.
—Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 18 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for unenlightened
M. R. O’Connor, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2025
And the culprit doesn’t seem to be a small number of unenlightened appraisers.
—Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 8 July 2024
Some are downright funky in their retro prejudices, others more quaintly unenlightened.
—Lauren Bravo, refinery29.com, 3 Jan. 2024
Most gratifying in Newnham’s investigation is how Hite reclaimed her own positive sense of self in exile through some key female friendships: a love goddess finding refuge with like-minded souls after a bruising battle with unenlightened, resentful mortals.
—Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 18 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for unenlightened
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unenlightened
Adjective
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One Battle After Another is the rare American film released in these benighted times of ours — with the backing of a major studio, no less — to be clear and insistent in the target of its anger, its despair and its prescriptions for what might make things better.—
Richard Lawson,
HollywoodReporter,
17 Sep. 2025
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With hundreds of years of patient work behind it, with some educational institutions willing to protect their scientists, and with researchers hard at work in less-benighted nations, the human desire to know and to understand will continue to produce results.—
Bill McKibben,
New Yorker,
3 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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That’s just idiotic foreign policy.—
Jamie McIntyre,
The Washington Examiner,
5 Sep. 2025
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The Chiefs open with the J’s Friday night in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is patently idiotic, but at least the loser can blame it on the bossa nova.—
Nick Canepa,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
30 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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The man seemed to think he was surrounded by incompetent, unintelligent, wastes of space.—
Josh Davis,
Fortune,
17 Sep. 2025
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The 32-year-old says she’s always been naturally curious, but as a child, school often left her feeling anxious and unintelligent.—
Harmeet Kaur,
CNN Money,
13 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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This Court finds that Respondent’s lack of candor on his I-485 was not an oversight by an uninformed, uneducated applicant.—
Filip Timotija,
The Hill,
18 Sep. 2025
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As Plato once described, Socrates taught an uneducated boy how to double the area of a square.—
Mrigakshi Dixit,
Interesting Engineering,
17 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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So what will our ignorant commissioner do with the information?—
Edward Lotterman,
Twin Cities,
28 Sep. 2025
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But criticism quickly began to pile in on Chinese social media, where users denounced the advertising stunt as ignorant of the potential environmental impacts in a remote and pristine ecosystem.—
Chris Lau,
CNN Money,
22 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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So many of Black Rabbit’s subplots are confusing, boring, or dumb.—
Andrew Bernard,
The Washington Examiner,
3 Oct. 2025
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Luis Jauregui, a professor at UC Irvine, is an expert in quantum physics who is smart enough to describe his work in terms that are foreign to a non-scientist, yet affable enough to explain it anyway, without making any non-scientist feel dumb.—
Andre Mouchard,
Oc Register,
28 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unenlightened.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unenlightened. Accessed 6 Oct. 2025.
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