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History vocabulary · Periods and Eras

Enlightenment

Meaning in history, with examples

/ɪnˈlaɪtnmənt/nounCore term

In history, Enlightenment means: The European intellectual movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that stressed reason, science, individual rights and criticism of traditional authority.

In Turkish: Aydınlanma, Aydınlanma Çağı

How it is used

Written as the Enlightenment with a capital E; also called the Age of Reason. Students discuss Enlightenment thinkers, ideas and values and their influence on revolutions and constitutions. Specialists also speak of the Scottish or the French Enlightenment.

Example sentences

  1. Enlightenment ideas about natural rights influenced the American and French revolutions.

  2. Voltaire and Montesquieu are among the best-known writers of the French Enlightenment.

Common collocations

  • the Enlightenment
  • Enlightenment thinkers
  • Enlightenment ideas
  • the Scottish Enlightenment
  • the Age of Reason
  • RenaissanceThe cultural movement in Europe from about the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, starting in Italy, marked by renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman learning and art.
  • revolutionThe sudden, often violent overthrow of a government or political system by its people, or any deep and rapid change in society, the economy or ideas.
  • early modernRelating to the period of roughly 1500 to 1800, between the Middle Ages and the modern age, marked by printing, global exploration, new states and early capitalism.
  • ReformationThe sixteenth-century religious movement in Western Europe that challenged the authority and practices of the Catholic Church and led to the founding of Protestant churches.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Periods and Eras

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