How to Use illiterate in a Sentence

illiterate

adjective
  • She didn't want anyone to know that she was illiterate.
  • He's illiterate when it comes to computers.
  • She is politically illiterate and has never voted in an election.
  • On average, women in Togo only have around three years of education – about half that of men – and 55 percent are illiterate.
    Kathleen Toner, CNN, 19 July 2024
  • Mary is illiterate, delusional and somehow oblivious to the entire Civil War.
    Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 12 July 2024
  • For most of human history, most people were illiterate, so ticker taping is a relatively new phenomenon.
    Emily Makowski, Scientific American, 4 Apr. 2024
  • Some are illiterate and don't know how to spell the children's names.
    The Christian Science Monitor, 21 June 2018
  • Some are illiterate and don’t know how to spell the children’s names.
    BostonGlobe.com, 20 June 2018
  • But still, that's a whole lot of wall to dedicate to a man who called you old, broke and illiterate.
    Daniel Rapaport, SI.com, 26 Sep. 2017
  • Fifty percent of girls are out of school, and more are illiterate.
    Carolyn Giardina, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Jan. 2018
  • There used to be a lot of illiterate people around here.
    Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Four in 5 people in the broader city of Aveiro live in poverty, and 1 in 4 adults are illiterate.
    Terrence McCoy, Washington Post, 28 July 2023
  • An illiterate maid, Félix had led a life of poverty, working the past few years for $240 per month.
    Terrence McCoy, Washington Post, 25 June 2021
  • At the current rate, 30% of adults and 20% children—most of them in poor countries—would still be illiterate by the deadline.
    Annalisa Merelli, Quartz, 16 Sep. 2019
  • Kat is illiterate, so Paul reads him a letter from his wife.
    CNN, 17 Feb. 2023
  • Close to two-thirds of Central Africans are illiterate.
    Roger Cohen Mauricio Lima, New York Times, 24 Dec. 2022
  • Buy Photo At age 46, Wanda Steward was illiterate, and much of the world was a mystery to her.
    Philly.com, 14 Sep. 2017
  • The rest of the world was still illiterate, betting on oral traditions and local deities.
    Reuven Brenner, WSJ, 10 May 2018
  • Around the world, 750 million adults are illiterate, most of them women.
    Shay Maunz, Glamour, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Jude, who like all Lapvonians is illiterate, beats Marek and throw shovels at him and knocks out his teeth.
    New York Times, 13 June 2022
  • Yet most children get fewer than six years of schooling and one in nine is illiterate.
    The Economist, 11 Jan. 2018
  • Award-winning poet Vuong tells their story in the form of a letter from the youngest, now a man in his twenties, to his illiterate mother.
    Jim Kiest, ExpressNews.com, 5 June 2019
  • Few of the new arrivals spoke English, and many were illiterate in their native languages.
    Ted Genoways, New Republic, 15 May 2017
  • The businessman orders the murder of the village’s illiterate leader, then presents the dead man’s signature on a bill of sale for the oil-rich lands.
    Jud Newborn, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Feb. 2023
  • The mother of twelve children (ten of whom survived to adulthood), Zhor was illiterate.
    Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Merzazadah’s path to learninghis craft traces back to his father, Mir Mirza, a poor, illiterate man from the province of Panjshir.
    Los Angeles Times, 18 Oct. 2022
  • Then the story jumps back in time to show Moo-sik as a resourceful child, the son of a poor illiterate mother and a petty gangster who is often in jail.
    Joan MacDonald, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Some migrants don’t speak one of the languages the app supports, while other migrants are illiterate.
    Seung Min Kim and Rebecca Santana, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 June 2024
  • It could also be used to flag someone as illiterate earlier on in their prison stay.
    Julia O'Donoghue, NOLA.com, 16 Aug. 2017
  • One of his roles was to meet with illiterate inmates in rural Afghan prisons and write letters for them to their families.
    Laura Dean, The New Yorker, 24 June 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'illiterate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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