| 释义 |
‖ illuminati, n. pl.|ɪl(j)uːmɪˈneɪtaɪ, ɪluːmɪˈnɑːtiː|
Also sing. illuminato |-ˈɑːtəʊ|; † plur. -oes.
[Plural of L. illūminātus, It. -ato ‘enlightened’, used in fig. sense.]
A name assumed by or applied to various societies or sects because of their claim to special enlightenment in religious, or (later) intellectual, matters. a. Applied to a sect of Spanish heretics which existed in the 16th c. under the name Alumbrados or ‘enlightened’; subsequently, to a similar but obscure sect of Familists which arose in France in Louis XIII's reign.
1599Sandys Europæ Spec. (1632) 166 An other pestilent Sect there was not long since of the Illuminati in Aragon. 1652R. Boreman Countr. Catech. ii. 5 The Illuminatoes of the times, the Anabaptists. 1686tr. Bouhours' St. Ignatius ii. 77 The Inquisitors..were induced to believe, that..the Person..might either be an Illuminato or a Lutheran. 1749G. Lavington Enthus. Methodists & Papists (1754) I. ii. 114 The Alumbrado's or Illuminati of Spain.
b. Used to render Ger. Illuminaten, the name of a celebrated secret society, founded at Ingolstadt in Bavaria, in 1776, by Professor Adam Weishaupt, holding deistic and republican principles, and having an organization akin to freemasonry; hence applied to other thinkers regarded as atheistic or free-thinking, e.g. the French Encyclopædists.
1797J. Robison (title) Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. 1798Washington Lett. Writ. 1893 XIV. 119 The doctrines of the Illuminati and principles of Jacobinism. 1802Kett Elem. Gen. Knowl. 71 (Jod.) The Freethinkers of England, the Philosophists of France, and the Illuminati of Germany.
c. gen. Persons affecting or claiming to possess special knowledge or enlightenment on any subject: often used satirically.
1816T. L. Peacock Headlong Hall i, The conversation among these illuminati soon became animated. 1846H. Rogers Ess. I. iv. 157 What was dark to himself was happily quite clear to these illuminati [the alchemists]. 1850Marg. Fuller Life without & Life within (1860) 41 Wilhelm is deemed worthy of admission to the society of the Illuminati, that is, those who have pierced the secret of life, and know what it is to be and to do. a1878Sir G. Scott Recollect. iii. (1879) 111 All thanks and honour..to the older Pugin, however much our illuminati may sneer. 1887Contemp. Rev. Apr. 592 An illuminato like Katkoff may write as if Russia was invincible; practical men know better. |