enlightenment

noun

• 1 [mass noun] the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened:Robbie looked to me for enlightenment
• the action or state of attaining or having attained spiritual knowledge or insight, in particular (in Buddhism) that awareness which frees a person from the cycle of rebirth: the key to enlightenment is the way of the Buddha

• 2 (the Enlightenment) a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent figures included Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.