ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED1.]
1. Overtaken by the darkness of the night; affected by the night (obs.).
1575. in Farr’s Sel. P. (1845), II. 516. And so are all my lockes Bedecked … With these benighted drops.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xxi. He told of his benighted road. Ibid. (1815), Guy M., xlviii. Some benighted fisherman, he thought.
2. fig. Involved in intellectual or moral darkness.
1634. Milton, Comus, 384. He that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, IV. 339. You poets are benighted in this age.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1877), I. iii. 51. He was a benighted Moslem.
† b. Involved in obscurity. Obs.
1647. Ward, Simp. Cobler, 19. Seekers, looking for new Nuntio’s from Christ, to assoile these benighted questions.
Hence Benightedness.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 5 July, 1/2. Respectable old Russell Whigs, on whom charges of moral corruption operate much more powerfully than charges of intellectual benightedness.
