benight

verb

Etymology: From Middle English benyghten, binighten, bynyȝten, equivalent to be- + night.

1. To overtake (a traveller etc) with the darkness of night, especially before shelter is reached.

   “How far might I have been on my way by this time! I am made to tread thoſe ſteps thrice over, which I needed not to have trod but once: Yea now alſo I am like to be benighted, for the day is almost ſpent.”

   “[H]e struck off the common road, to take the benefit of a nearer cut; and finding himself benighted near a village, took up his lodging at the first inn to which his horse directed him.”

2. To darken; to shroud or obscure.

   “The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning; / Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air.”

3. To plunge or be overwhelmed in moral or intellectual darkness.

   “Can we whose souls are lighted With Wisdom from on high, Can we to men benighted The lamp of life deny?”