enlighten
Other forms: enlightened; enlightening; enlightens
To enlighten someone means to explain something clearly to him. If your friend is behaving strangely but insists she has a reason for it, you could ask her to enlighten you.
Enlighten comes from the metaphor that ignorance is a state of being "in the dark," and that knowledge is illuminating. We use enlighten as a verb meaning to clear up, to remove confusion. Light is also a powerful metaphor for spiritual insight. If you have a great revelation about the divinity of the world, you could say you have been enlightened. The era known as the "Age of Reason" is also called the Enlightenment.
-
give spiritual insight to; in religionsynonyms: irradiate
-
make understand
-
make free from confusion or ambiguity; make clearsynonyms: clear, clear up, crystalise, crystalize, crystallise, crystallize, elucidate, illuminate, shed light on, sort out, straighten out
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing enlighten
In this epic poem, clever Odysseus attempts to find his way home after the end of the Trojan War. Learn these words from the translation by Robert Fitzgerald. Here are links to our lists for the book: Books 1–7, Books 8–13, Books 14–18, Books 19–24
In 1987 President Ronald Reagan traveled to Berlin and delivered this monumental speech encouraging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Percy and his demigod friends embark on a quest to find the missing goddess Artemis in the third book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.