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Your word for today is: enlightenment, n.
enlightenment, n.
Pronunciation: Brit. /ɨnˈlʌɪtnˌm(ə)nt/, /ɛnˈlʌɪtnˌm(ə)nt/, U.S. /ɨnˈlaɪtnm(ə)nt/, /ɛnˈlaɪtnm(ə)nt/
Etymology: < enlighten v. + -ment suffix. Compare (especially with senses 1b, 2) German Aufklärung (see Aufklärung n.), French éclaircissement (see éclaircissement n.). Compare earlier enlightening n.
On the history of use in senses 1b, 2 see J. Schmidt in Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 64 (2003) 421–43. This article incorporates a discussion of the relevant definition in N.E.D.; compare:
1891 N.E.D.,Enlightenment,‥2. Sometimes used [after Ger. Aufklärung, Aufklärerei] to designate the spirit and aims of the French philosophers of the 18th c., or of others whom it is intended to associate with them in the implied charge of shallow and pretentious intellectualism, unreasonable contempt for tradition and authority, etc.
1.
a. The action of bringing someone to a state of greater knowledge, understanding, or insight; the state of being enlightened in this way. Also: an instance of this. rare before 19th cent.
1621 R. Aylett Song of Songs i. iv. iv. 83The Word, without the Spirits enlightenment, Is as good Seede sowne on vntilled ground.
1669 Le Blanc in C. H. Spurgeon Treasury of David (1874) IV. Ps. lxxxiv. 13His lightnings, that is his divine enlightenments, are best seen.
1798 Monthly Mag. 6 554A truth‥the power of comprehending which implies a high degree of enlightenment.
1846 W. H. Mill Five Serm. (1848) 5The highest spiritual enlightenment.
1855 Dickens Let. 19 June (1993) VII. 652,I should be ready to receive enlightenment from any source.
1881 W. Collins Black Robe I. ii. 16,I needed no further enlightenment.
1938 W. H. Auden & C. Isherwood On Frontier iii. ii. 108It [sc. the working class] prefers our larger and livelier organs of enlightenment, which can afford snappier sports news,‥and bigger photographs of bathing lovelies.
1967 M. Reynolds After Some Tomorrow 39While under the effect of‥charas fudge, did you ever experience one of your prophetic‥enlightenments?
1990 Shareware Mag. Nov.–Dec. 9/1This column is a place to network with other users for mutual enlightenment.
b. spec. Usu. with capital initial. The action or process of freeing human understanding from the accepted and customary beliefs sanctioned by traditional, esp. religious, authority, chiefly by rational and scientific inquiry into all aspects of human life, which became a characteristic goal of philosophical writing in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Freq. in the Age of Enlightenment (cf. sense 2).
Closely associated with sense 2.
1825 A. Pichot Hist. & Lit. Tour Foreigner in Eng. & Scotl. II. xc. 422We did all that in France, and worse still, to the shame of the age of enlightenment be it spoken.
1836 N. Amer. Rev. July 176When he [sc. Tieck] made his first appearance, it was, under the banner of Nicolai, as one of the Berlin advocates of enlightenment and reason, and enemies of superstition and mysticism.
1865 J. H. Stirling Secret of Hegel I. p. lxvi,Aufklärung, Illumination, Enlightenment, destroyed Greece; it lowered man from Spirit to Animal.
1889 E. Caird Crit. Philos. Kant I. 69The individualistic tendencies of the age of Enlightenment.
1939 M. Praz Stud. 17th-Cent. Imagery I. iv. 184Iconology during the period of enlightenment in philosophy and in literature, takes the place held by emblematics during the age of the Jesuits and the Baroque.
1974 tr. W. F. Wertheim Evol. & Revol. 173A-religious rationalism was the prevalent trend of thinking in the Age of Enlightenment.
2006 D. R. Kelley Frontiers of Hist. i. 31German historians continued to promote the national-imperial ideal over the false universalism of Humanism and Enlightenment.
c. Buddhism. The state of spiritual insight or awareness which frees a person from the cycle of suffering and rebirth; = nirvana n.1a. Also in extended use.
1836 Jrnl. Asiatic Soc. Bengal Feb. 77The ultimate scope and genius of the Buddist religion, of which the end is, freedom from metempsychosis; and the means, perfect and absolute enlightenment of the understanding, and consequent discovery of the grand secret of nature.
1869 S. Beal tr. Trav. Fah-Hian & Sung-Yun xxxi. 120The town of Gaya, near which Buddha arrived at complete enlightenment.
1927 D. T. Suzuki Ess. Zen Buddhism 1st Ser. ii. 52The presence in every individual of a faculty designated by the Mahayanists as Prajñā‥. Without Prajñā there could be no Enlightenment.
1976 National Geographic June 840 (caption)Serenity opens the door to self at a 'dry landscape' garden where Zen Buddhists seek enlightenment.
2009 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 28 Aug. r5Dr. Madan Kataria of Mumbai, the 'guru of giggling', who promotes laughter as a shortcut to enlightenment.
2. With the and capital initial. The dominant European intellectual culture in the 18th cent. which typically emphasized freedom of thought and action without reference to religious and other traditional authority, proposed a deistic understanding of the universe, insisted on a rationalist and scientific approach to the understanding of human society, the law, education, the economy, etc., and had as an important aim the development of new theoretical methods and practical reforms for these areas; (also) the period of time during which this climate of thought was dominant. Cf. Aufklärung n., illumination n.3.
The Enlightenment spread across most of Western Europe and to European colonies in the Americas, typically with different aspects predominating in different countries or regions (e.g. the flowering of social and economic thought in Scotland). Hence, the term is often modified by an adjective denoting one of the main centres of activity, suggesting the particular characteristics or contribution of the thinkers from that area, as French Enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment, etc.
1893 J. H. Tufts tr. W. Windelband Hist. Philos. v. 438The beginnings of the philosophy of the Enlightenment are to be sought in England, where,‥a powerful upward movement of literary life claimed philosophy also in the interests of general culture.
1910 J. G. Hibben Philos. Enlightenment i. 3The significant movement of thought known as the Enlightenment, or Aufklärung, falls in the main within the period of the eighteenth century.
1917 Philos. Rev. 26 130The Enlightenment was manifestly dominated by the presumption of the desirability of uniformity.
1956 E. Fromm Art of Loving ii. 15Following the ideas of the Enlightenment, Socialist thinkers of various schools defined equality as abolition of exploitation.
1985 C. J. Jaenen Role of Church in New France 8New France seems to have been shielded also from the radical ideas of the French Enlightenment.
1998 A. Quinton Hume 4He was the most distinguished luminary of the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, which also included Adam Smith.
2004 H. Kennedy Just Law (2005) xv. 310The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spawned a new generation of rights, more textured but just as far-reaching as those of the Enlightenment.
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