benighted

adjective

be·​night·​ed bi-ˈnī-təd 

bē-

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

benightedly adverb

benightedness noun

Synonyms

• analphabetic
• dark
• ignorant
• illiterate
• nonliterate
• rude
• simple
• uneducated
• uninstructed
• unlearned
• unlettered
• unread
• unschooled
• untaught
• untutored

Examples of benighted in a Sentence

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

Recent Examples on the Web

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

On the ideological battlefield, efforts by Saudi clerics to delegitimize Salafi jihadism might seem hypocritical to Westerners, given the benighted views these clerics themselves hold. —F. Gregory Gause Iii, Foreign Affairs, 13 June 2016

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

benighted

adjective

be·​night·​ed bi-ˈnīt-əd 

: ignorant sense 1, 2