How to use literate in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective, noun

Literate means able to read and write; having literacy. Example: “Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.”

Examples of literate by meaning

adjectiveAble to read and write; having literacy.

Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 86

adjectiveKnowledgeable in literature, writing; literary; well-read.

The reason literature plays a unique role in any literate culture is its longevity.2008 January 7, Charles Hugh Smith, Can a Fragmented Culture Find Common Ground?

adjectiveWhich is used in writing (of a language or dialect).

The Mongol emperor Kublai Khan even commissioned an alphabetic script for his empire, to be used officially for all its literate languages, Mongolian, Chinese, Turkic and Persian.2005, Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, Harper

adjectiveAble to understand and evaluate something.

And yet, I became financially literate—not just in my personal life, but in running a small company.2026 April 22, Jillian Sanders, “The Danger of Surrendering Your Financial Independence in a Relationship”, in TIME, archived from the...

More sentences with literate

And you—you clueless, literate shmuck—are but a pawn in this game.2012 November 28, “Please Click On Our Website's Banner Ads”, in The Onion. From the entry pageview
But leg men nowadays are expected to be literate, though sometimes barely.2008, Louis M. Lyons, “Leg Men”, in M. A. Lyons, editor, A Pause to Copy: Memoirs of Louis M. Lyons, Journalist, volume IV, [Bloomington…. From the entry legman
He had asked, 'So do the literate acada people also do that?'1987, Kowus Bisi-Williams, The Black Godfather, page 32. From the entry acada
He is, to me, the most literate writer ever produced by stfantasy.1947 April, C. Oliver, Thrilling Wonder Stories, page 98. From the entry stfantasy
But in our study, there were mainly young, active, and literate pauciparous women who participated in the screening program.2015 June 18, Apollinaire G. Horo et al., “Cervical Cancer Screening Program by Visual Inspection: Acceptability and Feasibility in Health…. From the entry pauciparous
Generation Zed, today’s new learners, are also the most technologically literate and socially empowered generation of children ever.2011, Mark McCrindle, Emily Wolfinger, The ABC of XYZ: Understanding the Global Generations, University of New South Wales Press, →ISBN…. From the entry Generation Zed
The highly literate distaste for people who too passionately identify with fictional incarnations has a distinctly anticelebrity feel to it.2010, Blakey Vermeule, Why do we care about literary characters?, page x. From the entry anticelebrity
Once the Greeks became literate, they also demythed nature and developed a notion of causality to explain its actions.2004, Robert K. Logan, The Alphabet Effect: A Media Ecology Understanding of the Making of Western Civilization, Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton…. From the entry demyth
Of course, this little antiastrology sermon is being preached to the converted; most literate readers disdain astrology already.1992, Lawrence B. Slobodkin, Simplicity and complexity in games of the intellect, page 10. From the entry antiastrology
Up in the boughs, a literate London Tarzan.1971, William Samsom, “A Stroll in the Park”, in Réalités, numbers 242-247, page 65. From the entry parklife
This relation is further complicated by the literate persons who know something of the foreign pronunciation and orthography.1933, Leonard Bloomfield, Language, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, page 449. From the entry hyperforeign
Thus, to be literate, in Arabic, is to be nonilliterate, which implies a lower level of literacy than "literacy" in the English language.2004, Uwe P. Gielen, Jaippaul Roopnarine, Childhood and adolescence; cross-cultural perspective and applications. From the entry nonilliterate
"A public intellectual is someone who engages in intellectual pursuits, airs intellectual concerns in a way the broad, literate public can understand.2001 June 13, Chris Hedges, “Public Lives: Watching Bush's Language, and Television”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Oct 2012. From the entry public intellectual
I see it this way: When I was a kid I was bookish, extremely literate for my age, the usual cliched embryonic SF reader.1997 August 22, Paul Vincent, “Re: "A message in Mime Format"”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom (Usenet), message-ID <5tkqt8$pb5$1@despair.u-net.com>. From the entry librovore
The hackerish look of dot-matrix fonts on screens and printers has partially prevented full acceptance of computers as tools for a literate public.1985, Byte, volume 10. From the entry hackerish
If Goody is correct then the traditional local religions would seem to be incompatible with a literate society, and the introduction of literacy thus necessitates the unchoice of such religions.2014, John E. Joseph, Talbot J. Taylor, Ideologies of Language (RLE Linguistics A: General Linguistics). From the entry unchoice
Of course, what was available to those literates was shaped by a complex of academics, journalizing mandarins, puffing publishers, and alternately propagandistic (read this) and prudifying (don't read that) politics.2003, Bridges, volume 10, numbers 1-4, page 113. From the entry prudify

Meaning of literate

adjective Able to read and write; having literacy.
adjective Knowledgeable in literature, writing; literary; well-read.
adjective Which is used in writing (of a language or dialect).

Full definition of literate

Questions about literate in a sentence

How do you use literate in a sentence?: Literate is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.”
What is a short sentence with literate?: “Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.”
What does literate mean?: Literate means able to read and write; having literacy.

Adapted from Wiktionary: literate (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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