Word Study
enlightening
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Adjective enlightening has 2 senses
- enlightening(a = adj.all) illuminating, informative - tending to increase knowledge or dissipate ignorance; "an enlightening glimpse of government in action"; "an illuminating lecture" Antonym: unenlightening
- enlightening(a = adj.all) edifying - enlightening or uplifting so as to encourage intellectual or moral improvement; "the paintings in the church served an edifying purpose even for those who could not read"
CIDE DICTIONARY
enlightening, adj.
- enlightening so as to encourage intellectual or moral improvement. [WordNet 1.5]
- tending to increase knowledge or dissipate ignorance; as, an enlightening glimpse of government in action. [WordNet 1.5]
THESAURUS
enlightening
advisory, allegorizing, annotative, autodidactic, brightening, broadening, clarifying, coeducational, communicative, critical, cultural, demonstrative, demythologizing, didactic, disabusing, disciplinary, disenchanting, disillusionary, disillusioning, disillusive, edifying, editorial, educating, educational, educative, elucidative, euhemeristic, exegetic, exemplificative, exhortatory, explaining, explanatory, explicative, explicatory, expositive, expository, glossarial, homiletic, hortatory, illuminant, illuminating, illuminative, illumining, illustrative, informational, informative, informing, initiatory, instructive, introductory, lecturing, lightening, lighting, monitory, preaching, preceptive, propaedeutic, rationalistic, rationalizing, scholiastic, self-teaching, teaching, tuitionary, undeceiving
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