Word.ws English Dictionary

aliteracy

aliteracy noun: the state of having the ability to read, but lacking interest in doing so.

Noun

aliteracy (uncountable)

  1. The state of having the ability to read, but lacking interest in doing so.
    • Curiously the perfect weapon against rampant aliteracy emerged more than 50 years ago in the form of an utterly addictive synthesis of word and picture: the comic book.2008 May 11, Larry Doyle, “Cracking the Comics Code”, in New York Times

Forms of aliteracy

alternative formalliteracy

Origin of aliteracy

From a- + literacy.

Questions about aliteracy

What does aliteracy mean?
Aliteracy means the state of having the ability to read, but lacking interest in doing so.
What part of speech is aliteracy?
Aliteracy is a noun.

Words near aliteracy in the dictionary

  1. alitame
  2. Alitao
  3. Alitap
  4. alite
  5. aliter
  6. aliteracy
  7. aliterate
  8. aliterates
  9. alitize
  10. alitized
  11. alitizes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: aliteracy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “aliteracy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aliteracy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.