whelm vs benight

whelm and benight both are verbs.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
whelm	No	No	Yes	No
benight	No	No	Yes	No

As verbs, benight is a hyponym of whelm; that is, benight is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than whelm:

Other hyponyms of whelm include devastate, clutch, get hold of, seize, kill, knock out, stagger, lock.

whelm (verb)	benight (verb)
overcome, as with emotions or perceptual stimuli	make darker and difficult to perceive by sight
to neither fail to meet nor exceed expectation	envelop with social, intellectual, or moral darkness
	overtake with darkness or night