Forlighten

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To decrease; reduce; diminish; lighten; lighten up. archaic, transitive

    "For to forlighten with his sheen / Those sitting sad, in darkest blindness, / In death's cold shade."

Example

More examples

"For to forlighten with his sheen / Those sitting sad, in darkest blindness, / In death's cold shade."

Etymology

From for- + lighten, but also continuing (in altered form) earlier forlyten (“to diminish”), from for- + lite + -en.

Related phrases

lighten up

More for "forlighten"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.