6 July 2016

benighted

[bih-nahy-tid]

adjective

1. intellectually or morally ignorant; unenlightened:
benighted ages of barbarism and superstition.
2. overtaken by darkness or night.

Origin of benighted

1565-1575; benight (be- + night ) + -ed2

Related forms

benightedly, adverb
benightedness, noun

Synonyms

1. backward, primitive, crude, uncultivated.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for benighted

Contemporary Examples

Colonial rhetoric was often virtuous: colonizers would bring civilization to benighted Africans.
Why Africa’s Turning Anti-Gay
Jay Michaelson
March 30, 2014

I knew immediately where to locate my benighted family and growing restlessness.
In A Very Deep Way: Remembering Rabbi David Hartman
Bernard Avishai
February 20, 2013

In our benighted moment, that modest self-definition rose to mythic proportions.
A Man More Heroic Than Sully
Lee Siegel
March 4, 2009

Anagram

debt hinge
get behind
gent be hid

Today’s quote

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

– Pablo Casals

On this day

6 July 1925 – birth of Bill Haley, who arguably had the world’s first ever rock’n’roll song, ‘Rock Around the Clock’. Died 9 February 1981.

6 July 1942 – Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the ‘Secret Annexe’ above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

6 July 1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time. Three years later they formed the Beatles.