illiterate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As the conversation gets rolling, she digs into her roots, explaining that her maternal grandmother was an illiterate indentured servant.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025
A high number of pupils at the secondary school are "functionally illiterate", meaning they have a reading age well below average when they start Year 7.
From BBC • May 21, 2025
In the novel, Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the Democratic presidential nomination to Buzz Windrip, who is described as “vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily discredited,” but wins the election in a landslide.
From Salon • May 17, 2025
You would have to be culturally illiterate to be unfamiliar with Michael Jordan.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 7, 2025
How he had copied the group of letters out on a piece of brown paper; copied, as illiterate people do, every curlicue, arch, and bend in the letters, and presented it to the midwife.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Vocabulary lists containing illiterate
I Am Malala
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Freak the Mighty
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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
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