enlighten
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.
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give spiritual insight to; in religion
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synonyms:
irradiate
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type of:
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prophesy, vaticinate
predict or reveal through, or as if through, divine inspiration
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prophesy, vaticinate
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make understand
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make free from confusion or ambiguity; make clear
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synonyms:
clear, clear up, crystalise, crystalize, crystallise, crystallize, elucidate, illuminate, shed light on, sort out, straighten out
Vocabulary lists containing enlighten
It's boys against girls at Laketon Elementary School when fifth-grader Dave starts a class contest: who can say the fewest words over two days?
This novel, written in the form of a journal, details the life of a New England girl in the 1830s.
After being abandoned at a campsite in Maine, eleven-year-old Jack tries to make his way back home to Boston.
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