Word.ws English Dictionary

preliteracy

preliteracy noun: the period before literacy, when a person or culture has not yet learned to read and write.

Noun

preliteracy (uncountable)

  1. The period before literacy, when a person or culture has not yet learned to read and write.

Origin of preliteracy

From pre- + literacy.

Questions about preliteracy

What does preliteracy mean?
Preliteracy means the period before literacy, when a person or culture has not yet learned to read and write.
What part of speech is preliteracy?
Preliteracy is a noun.

Words near preliteracy in the dictionary

  1. prelistening
  2. prelistens
  3. prelisting
  4. prelists
  5. prelit
  6. preliteracy
  7. preliterary
  8. preliterate
  9. preliterates
  10. preliterature
  11. prelitigation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preliteracy (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: “preliteracy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preliteracy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.