enlighten
/ɪnˈlaɪtən/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.22 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The sun enlightens the Earth."
- "She tried to enlighten them about the rules of the program, but they remained belligerently and self-righteously ignorant."
- "Care to enlighten me, if you think I'm so benighted?"
- "There was a warning sulkiness in the manner of this speech, which admonished Mr Pecksniff that his dear friend was not to be trifled with or fenced off, and that he must either return a straight–forward reply to his question, or plainly give him to understand that he declined to enlighten him upon the subject to which it referred."
- "As your reviewer showed, the purpose of the translator and publishers is to help along the labor movement by furnishing a lesson from the past to enlighten the movement of to-day."
- "I'm in jail for what I hope will be a short stay and really quite lonely. If there are any who would care to correspond, I will be greatly pleased and will try to enlighten any and all to the hardships we have in prison."
Etymology
Formerly also inlighten, from Middle English enlightenen, inlightnen, a hybrid formed from inlighten (“to enlighten, illuminate”), from Old English inlīhtan, onlīhtan, enlīhtan (“to enlighten, illuminate, give light to, give sight to”) and lightnen (“to enlighten, illuminate”) (equivalent to light + -en). Cognate with Dutch inlichten (“to enlighten, inform”), Old High German inliuhten (“to enlighten, illuminate”), Gothic 𐌹𐌽𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌷𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 (inliuhtjan, “to enlighten, illuminate”). More at inlight, -en.