benighted

American  

[bih-nahy-tid] / bɪˈnaɪ tɪd /

adjective

1. intellectually or morally ignorant; unenlightened.

   benighted ages of barbarism and superstition.

   Synonyms:

   uncultivated, crude, primitive, backward

2. overtaken by darkness or night.

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benighted British  

/ bɪˈnaɪtɪd /

adjective

1. lacking cultural, moral, or intellectual enlightenment; ignorant

2. archaic overtaken by night

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Other Word Forms

• benightedly adverb
• benightedness noun

Etymology

Origin of benighted

First recorded in 1565–75; be- + night + -ed ²

Explanation

Being called benighted is much like being called naive. It means lacking in knowledge or understanding—the kind you might have if you were older or more sophisticated. Although it sounds a lot like "being knighted", benighted has nothing to do with knights and, in fact, includes the word "night" (as in the opposite of day) and not "knight" (as in "of the Round Table"). One way to remember what benighted means is to think of a person "being nighted" or, put into the dark. A benighted person is in the dark about things: they don't know because they can't see. The Dark Ages are thought to have been a benighted time, full of primitive ideas.

Example Sentences

It’s more like an existential dilemma, both for our bewildered and benighted country and for the world.

From Salon • Jan. 3, 2026

A young woman from an island community on the brink of extinction sets out on an odyssey across the vastness of the Pacific, hoping to save the people of her benighted home.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 15, 2025

Banham’s revolutionary study has aged both well and badly; his sense of the liberatory aspect of the freeways, for instance, now seems both sentimental and benighted.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2023

In February 2018, she wrote an article for the Washington Post, calling Bostic's sentence "benighted and unjust".

From BBC • Mar. 20, 2023

He believed as firmly as Arthur did, as firmly as the benighted Christian, that there was such a thing as Right Finally, there was the impediment of his nature.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White