ENLIGHTENMENT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Enlightenment

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/ɛnlˈaɪtənmənt/ Listen

Enlightenment

noun

Education that results in understanding and the spread of knowledge.

(Hinduism and Buddhism) the beatitude that transcends the cycle of reincarnation; characterized by the extinction of desire and suffering and individual consciousness. Synonym: nirvana.

A movement in Europe from about 1650 until 1800 that advocated the use of reason and individualism instead of tradition and established doctrine. Synonym: Age of Reason.

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"Enlightenment" Quotes from Famous Books

... seemed to stand convicted of insincerity. He evidently suspected her, and all the while he spoke of Ulick and "Parsifal," she suffered a sort of trembling sickness, and that he should have perceived whence her enlightenment had come embittered her against him. Suddenly he came to the end of what he had to say; their eyes ...

— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... special knowledge on any subject but moral and religious truth to distinguish them from other men, and were as fallible as others on all questions of science, and even of history, extraneous to their religious teaching.... Their one paramount object being instruction and enlightenment in religion, they left their hearers uninstructed and unenlightened as before in other things.... In all other respects society, civilisation, developed itself according to its usual laws. The Hebrew in the wilderness, excepting as far as the law modified his ...

— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... "Bruce—ah!" Enlightenment seemed to come to the young man. "You have called to complain of the row he made last night. We ...

— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... testimonials with which I have been honored. There I trust it will remain for generations, to attest the generous munificence of the American people in recognizing the efforts, however inadequate, of one of the humblest of their fellow-countrymen to promote the enlightenment and prosperity ...

— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... growing convictions are emphasized by the keener perceptions of my spiritual nature, which declare that this almost resistless force which dominates our Republic, that may be likened to the world's storage battery, is due to the progressive power gained by the universal enlightenment of the American people as a mass. This important thought seems to emphasize the wisdom and the importance ...

— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

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