Word.ws English Dictionary

illiterates

illiterates is the plural of illiterate.

Meaning of illiterate

Noun

illiterate (plural illiterates)

  1. An illiterate person, one either not able to read and write or not knowing how.
    • We might also provide education plus reading and writing services to adult illiterates.1993, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower, HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP (2019), page 210
  2. A person ignorant about a given subject. (The relevant subject is usually named as a noun adjunct.)
    • Their government is run by business illiterates.

See all 6 meanings of illiterate

Questions about illiterates

What is illiterates the plural of?
Illiterates is the plural of illiterate.

Words near illiterates in the dictionary

  1. illiteral
  2. illiterally
  3. illiterate
  4. illiterately
  5. illiterateness
  6. illiterates
  7. illiterati
  8. illiterature
  9. illites
  10. illitic
  11. illitisation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: illiterates (page history and authors); illiterate (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: “illiterates.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/illiterates. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.