Past tense of enlighten
regular verb
The past tense of enlighten is enlightened. The past participle is also enlightened.
Forms of enlighten
| Base form (V1) | enlighten /ɪnˈlaɪtən/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | enlightened /ɪnˈlaɪtənd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | enlightened /ɪnˈlaɪtənd/ |
| Present participle | enlightening |
| Third person singular | enlightens |
Enlightened in a sentence
- Rather than focus on true-to-life drama that might have enlightened viewers, the BBC, frightened by Tory politicians’ threats to its very existence, concentrated its dramatic output on inaccurate historical soap operas, that falsified the view of our past.2016 October 30, Bernie Evans, “The big issue: where the true blame lies for our dangerous politics of hate”, in The Guardian
- An enlightened mind does not need external authority.From the entry enlightened
- I seemed to be enlightened and understood everything with which people were involved.2009, Harry Holloway, Christian Yoga – Love God with All Your Strength and your Neighbor as Yourself: The Gospels Enlightened – for Me…. From the entry scintillate
- The oikophobe is, in his own eyes, a defender of enlightened universalism against local chauvinism.2006, Roger Scruton, A Political Philosophy, →ISBN, page 25. From the entry oikophobe
- Zen teaches that we are all already enlightened, some of us simply don't choose to realize it.1999, Scott Shaw, “Mushin”, in Samurai Zen, Boston, Mass.: Weiser Books, →ISBN, page 142. From the entry satori
Meaning of enlighten
- verb To supply with light.
- verb To make something clear to (someone); to give knowledge or understanding to.
Questions about the past tense of enlighten
- What is the past tense of enlighten?
- The past tense of enlighten is enlightened.
- What is the past participle of enlighten?
- The past participle of enlighten is enlightened.
- Is enlighten a regular or irregular verb?
- Enlighten is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: enlighten (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of enlighten.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/enlighten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.