Enlightened

How to spell enlightened

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce enlightened

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does enlightened mean?

1. adjectiveHaving or showing a rational, well-informed outlook free from prejudice and superstition.
2. verbPast tense of enlighten: gave someone greater knowledge or understanding of a subject.

Enlightened in a sentence

• adjective

  The company adopted an enlightened policy on flexible working.

• verb

  The lecture enlightened many students about how the tax system works.

• adjective

  Her enlightened approach to managing the team won wide respect.

• verb

  The guide enlightened us on the history behind each painting.

Where does enlightened come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the native English noun 'light', which descends from the Old English leoht, meaning 'brightness' or 'radiance'. In the fifteenth century English added the prefix en-, meaning roughly 'to bring into' or 'to cause to be', producing the verb 'enlighten', which at first meant quite literally 'to give light to' or 'to illuminate'. Over the next two centuries the sense shifted from physical light to mental light, so that to enlighten someone came to mean to free them from ignorance and give them understanding. By the eighteenth century the participle 'enlightened' had become the proud label of an age, the Enlightenment, when reason and learning were prized above superstition. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the silent 'gh' is a fossil of an old guttural sound that English long ago stopped pronouncing but never stopped writing.

How the word is built

• en- (to make, bring into)
• light (from Old English leoht 'brightness')
• -en (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past participle / adjective ending)