Word.ws English Dictionary

preliterate

preliterate adjective: that has not yet developed a written language.

Adjective

preliterate (not comparable)

  1. that has not yet developed a written language
  2. who has not yet learned to read and write

Noun

preliterate (plural preliterates)

  1. a member of such a culture

Forms of preliterate

pluralpreliterates

Origin of preliterate

From pre- + literate.

Questions about preliterate

What does preliterate mean?
Preliterate means that has not yet developed a written language.
What part of speech is preliterate?
Preliterate can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near preliterate in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preliterate (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.

Last updated:

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