Contemporary Examples

But the Buddha condemned both extreme luxury and extreme poverty as obstacles to enlightenment.

After all, beauty contests are not widely regarded as templates of enlightenment.

Notwithstanding his own loftier goals, it is questionable whether mescaline and LSD gave Huxley the enlightenment he craved.

We must write to discover such charm, as they are the root of entertainment and enlightenment.

You attribute a part of the decline of violence to the forces of modernity and enlightenment.

Historical Examples

He pondered the situation deeply; he evolved many foolish schemes to compass his own enlightenment, and dismissed them one by one.

Such was Omai, a dark-minded savage, amidst civilisation and enlightenment.

"I notice that you and our friends have been busy hereabouts in our absence," he added, hinting at an enlightenment.

Great was his anxiety, and fervent were his prayers for enlightenment.

The force of circumstances; the enlightenment of the age has compelled them to move forward.

British Dictionary definitions for enlightenment Expand

the act or means of enlightening or the state of being enlightened

(Buddhism) the awakening to ultimate truth by which man is freed from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations to which all men are otherwise subject

(Hinduism) a state of transcendent divine experience represented by Vishnu: regarded as a goal of all religion

the Enlightenment, an 18th-century philosophical movement stressing the importance of reason and the critical reappraisal of existing ideas and social institutions

wisdom or understanding considered as the goal of Buddhist contemplation

Word Origin

from Sanskrit praj, from prajnti he knows

Word Origin and History for enlightenment Expand

1660s, "action of enlightening," from enlighten + -ment. Used only in figurative sense, of spiritual enlightenment, etc. Attested from 1865 as a translation of German Aufklrung, a name for the spirit and system of Continental philosophers in the 18c.

enlightenment in Culture Expand

An intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked by a celebration of the powers of human reason, a keen interest in science, the promotion of religious toleration, and a desire to construct governments free of tyranny. Some of the major figures of the Enlightenment were David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire.

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