Wood On Words
Can’t get enough words about words with Sunday’s newspaper column? Then this blog’s for you, my word-craving friend. I work the late shift, so don’t look for responses until the next day.

Posts filed under 'definitions'

A night slight

Add comment June 17th, 2008

It’s still considered quite an honor in what’s left of the British Empire to “be knighted.”

However, to be “benighted” is not a compliment. It means either “caught or surrounded by darkness or night” or, more commonly, “intellectually or morally backward.”

The key is the “night” part. That is, in darkness, or unenlightened.