Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use illiterate in a sentence

32 example sentences · adjective, noun

Illiterate means unable to read and write. Example: “About half of the population in Ethiopia is illiterate.”

Examples of illiterate by meaning

adjectiveUnable to read and write.

  • About half of the population in Ethiopia is illiterate.
  • The railways have undertaken publicity warning passengers about it, and have made a big difference in the appearance of long distance and short distance tickets, so that the most illiterate person can see the distinction.1953 November, 'Erca', “Ticket Frauds in the East”, in Railway Magazine, page 780

adjectiveNot conforming to prescribed standards of speech or writing.

  • Now (exc. in Nautical language, see b) it is only dialectal or an illiterate substitute for lie, its identity of form with the past tense of the latter no doubt accounting largely for the confusion.1908, “lay v.¹”, in James A. H. Murray et al., editors, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary)...

adjectiveIgnorant in a specified way or about a specified subject.

  • technologically illiterate, economically illiterate, emotionally illiterate

nounAn 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

nounA person ignorant about a given subject. (The relevant subject is usually named as a noun adjunct.).

  • Their government is run by business illiterates.
  • Sometimes a mathematical illiterate is called an innumerate.

More sentences with illiterate

  • Mark Twain famously said, "The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who can't read"; more succinctly: the aliterate has little advantage over the illiterate.From the entry aliterate
  • The worry is that we, as a society, will become innumerate, not just illiterate.2025 June 2, Leif Weatherby, “A.I. Is Coming For the Coders Who Made It”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times…. From the entry innumerate
  • Doesn't matter if these boys are illiterate mudkickers or college boys.2012, Jeff Shaara, A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh, →ISBN, page 64. From the entry mudkicker
  • It also helped deconstruct the stereotypical notion of Dalits as being oppressed, suppressed and illiterate.2006, Badri Narayan, “Visuals, Cultural Performances and Myths”, in Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India: Culture, Identity and…. From the entry suited and booted
  • The new use seems illiterate to Group 1; the old use seems odd to Group 2.2000, Bryan A. Garner, “skunked terms”, in The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, page 306. From the entry skunked
  • An illiterate woman, Mai-ch'en's wife is not gainstayed the benefit of the doubt.1998, Nancy Ann Watanabe, Love eclipsed: Joyce Carol Oates's Faustian moral vision. From the entry gainstay
  • My father was an illiterate Russian immigrant, a ragman, the lowest rung on the economic scale.1988 August 24, Mervyn Rothstein, “Kirk Douglas And Anger”, in New York Times, retrieved 02 Aug 2015. From the entry on the outside, looking in
  • But although Abraham was largely illiterate, the biblical texts were familiar to him.1960, Anthony Rippon, transl., Justice in Chains: From the Galleys to Devil’s Island, London: Robert Hale Limited, […], translation of…. From the entry abracadabrant
  • He hopes his life story – of the illiterate ex-hockey coach turned Conservative senator – can inspire others.2009 August 27, “Former NHL coach Demers headed to Senate”, in The Star, Toronto, Canada, retrieved 20 Apr 2016. From the entry red chamber
  • Yet Mami makes me repeat and reexplicate everything I say as though she's a dim-witted, illiterate, recently arrived, monolingual refugee.2005, Gigi Anders, Jubana!, page 12. From the entry reexplicate
  • This means that illiterates are effectively grounded, and in frustration many have joined the special reading classes offered in each village.1994 September 4, Sheryl WuDunn, “China's Rush to Riches”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 May 2015…. From the entry illiteracy
  • “We’re a Biblically illiterate community,” acknowledges the Rev.1990 December 17, Kenneth L. Woodward, Jeanne Gordon, Nonny de la Pena, Patricia King, Marc Peyser, Michael Mason, Nadine Joseph, Deborah…. From the entry biblically
  • She was on welfare, had two children, practically illiterate she was; she could barely read the labels on canned food.1978, George Davis, Love, Black Love, Anchor Books, →ISBN. From the entry get one's head straight
  • Sixty-four percent more Spanish are functionally illiterate compared to Anglos in Lubbock (only 15 percent more of nonwhites than Anglos).1970, Henry Sioux Johnson, William J. Hernández-Martinez, Educating the Mexican American, page 87. From the entry spanish
  • America, in other words, isn’t illiterate.2026 July 8, Rose Horowitch, “The End of Reading Is Here”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic…. From the entry postliterate
  • During my grandparents’ generation and the generation before, most of the clansmen were illiterate, but they were deeply religious and followed traditional ways.2015, J. K. Chua, “Cultivating Gratitude: The Seven Signs from Heaven”, in Pebbles in the Pond: Transforming the World One Person at a…. From the entry Chaozhou
  • They snow the shop floor blind, anklefuls, silencing footfall, corkscrewing in blocks of sun — how light and illiterate with glee they settle.2001, Indiana Review - Volume 23, page 103. From the entry ankleful
  • The pansexually perverse bisexuals who cruised everybody, eliminating only the illiterate, were probably the only people there who really "got" the queerness of our party.1999, Out, volume 7, number 9, page 46. From the entry pansexually
  • Now in Xiping County, according to local officials, only 1.7 percent of those between the ages of 20 and 40 are illiterate.1994 September 4, Sheryl WuDunn, “China's Rush to Riches”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 May 2015…. From the entry illiteracy
  • By the mid-19th century, the typical village was sharply divided between the landowning class and the landless, voteless and largely illiterate labourers.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 392. From the entry labourer
  • The governor of a distant province receives a telegram from the Ministry asking how many analphabets (illiterates) there are in his area.1960, Opera, volume 11, London: Rolls House Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 281. From the entry analphabet
  • This chapter is illiterate, unconsciously Tappertitian.1912, Alfred Richard Orage, Arthur Moore, The New Age: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature and Art, page 66. From the entry Tappertitian
  • Any talent which gives a good new thing to others is a miracle, but commentators have thought it extra miraculous that England's first known poet was an illiterate herd.2000, Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury, published 2002, page 38. From the entry herd
  • But the qualification 'usually' is necessary, for the Negroes tend to weaken r after a consonant; and they omit it, as do illiterate white speakers, in throat, throw, through.1937, Oma Stanley, “III. The Consonants”, in The Speech of East Texas (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 2), New York: Columbia…. From the entry qualification
  • Such was the airy way with which, not an illiterate man on the street, but a brilliant woman of the world disposed of a tremendous historical fact.1919, Lee Meriwether, The War Diary of a Diplomat, Dodd, Mead and Company, page 173. From the entry man on the street

Meaning of illiterate

  1. adjective Unable to read and write.
  2. adjective Having less than an expected standard of familiarity with language and literature, or having little formal education.
  3. adjective Not conforming to prescribed standards of speech or writing.

Full definition of illiterate

Questions about illiterate in a sentence

How do you use illiterate in a sentence?
Illiterate is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “About half of the population in Ethiopia is illiterate.”
What is a short sentence with illiterate?
“America, in other words, isn’t illiterate.”
What does illiterate mean?
Illiterate means unable to read and write.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: illiterate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use illiterate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/illiterate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.