benight
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English benyghten, binighten, bynyȝten, equivalent to be- + night.
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -aɪt
Verb
benight (third-person singular simple present benights, present participle benighting, simple past and past participle benighted) (archaic, transitive)
- To overtake with night; especially of a traveller, etc.: to be caught out by oncoming night before reaching one's destination.
- 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC, page 4:
- The public road, however, was tolerably well-made and safe, so that the prospect of being benighted brought with it no real danger.
- To darken; to shroud or obscure.
- 1922 October, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XXV: The Oracles”, in Last Poems, London: Grant Richards Ltd., →OCLC, stanza 4, page 51, lines 13–14:
- The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning; / Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air.
- To plunge or be overwhelmed in moral or intellectual darkness.
- 1819, Reginald Heber, The Missionary Hymn:
- Can we whose souls are lighted
- With Wisdom from on high,
- Can we to men benighted
- The lamp of life deny?
- 1819, Reginald Heber, The Missionary Hymn:
Derived terms
Translations
to overtake with night; to be caught out by oncoming night before reaching one's destination
to darken — see also darken
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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References
- OED 2nd edition 1989