benight

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To overtake (a traveller etc) with the darkness of night, especially before shelter is…

   To overtake (a traveller etc) with the darkness of night, especially before shelter is reached.

   • How far might I have been on my way by this time! I am made to tread thoſe ſteps thrice over, which I needed not to have trod but once: Yea now alſo I am like to be benighted, for the day is almost ſpent.
   • [H]e struck off the common road, to take the benefit of a nearer cut; and finding himself benighted near a village, took up his lodging at the first inn to which his horse directed him.
   • The public road, however, was tolerably well-made and safe, so that the prospect of being benighted brought with it no real danger.
2. 2

   To darken

   To darken; to shroud or obscure.

   • 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.
3. 3

   To plunge or be overwhelmed in moral or intellectual darkness.

   • Can we whose souls are lighted With Wisdom from on high, Can we to men benighted The lamp of life deny?

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