benight
verbUK /bɪˈnaɪt/ · US /bɪˈnaɪt/
Etymology From Middle English benyghten, binighten, bynyȝten, equivalent to be- + night.
1
Archaic To overtake (a traveller etc) with the darkness of night, especially before shelter is reached.
Chiefly passive voice
- 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.1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 47:
- [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.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:
1 more example
- The public road, however, was tolerably well-made and safe, so that the prospect of being benighted brought with it no real danger.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:
2
Archaic 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.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:
3
Archaic 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?1819, Reginald Heber, The Missionary Hymn:
- Derived terms
- benighted, benightedly, benightedness, benighter, benighting, benightment