Definition of "enlighten" []

• To give spiritual or intellectual insight to: "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day” ( Thomas Jefferson). (verb-transitive)
• To give information to; inform or instruct. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "To enlighten is to bring light where there had previously been darkness, to replace opinion, i.e., superstition, by scientific knowledge of nature, beginning from phenomena available to all men and ending in rational demonstration possible for all men."
• "ROMULO: My friend, Mr. Ellis will have heard this term: it's called enlighten self-interest."
• "Some voices argue that we need to do a better job of firing youngsters 'imaginations when it comes to teaching history, by using learning tools that excite as well as enlighten - in other words making better use of edutainment, as it's known."