An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

An intellectual movement in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries celebrating human reason and scientific thought as the instruments of progress and subjecting conventional ways of thinking to rigorous critique.
The Enlightenment culminated with the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and the Encyclopédistes, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and the political ideals of the French and American Revolutions, while the precursor in science and philosophy included Francis Bacon (1561-1626), René Descartes (1596-1650), Isaac Newton (1643-1727), John Locke (1632-1704), and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).

Etymology (EN): From enlighten, from en- + → light + -en

• → -ment.

Etymology (PE): Asr, → age; rowšangari, noun from rowšangar “enlightener,” from rowšan “light, bright, luminous, splendid,” cognate with L. lux, → bright, + -gar a suffix of agent nouns, → -or.