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.
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Nearly 30 percent of people over 15 are illiterate—the highest rate in the country.
  — Popular Science, 3 Aug. 2020
• There was almost no Western medicine available in the 1960s, and most of the population was illiterate; as many as half of all babies and a third of mothers died in childbirth.
  — New York Times, 9 Jan. 2020
• There’s not much humor in the novel’s second strand, which attaches to Matt Coffin, an illiterate boy more or less Meryl Lee’s age.
  — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 31 Dec. 2020
• While about half of the migrants from Syria had a secondary education, many of those from Eritrea and Iraq were illiterate.
  — Thomas Rogers, The New York Review of Books, 31 Mar. 2021
• The pile-on was fast and predictable and included a lot of famous and nearly famous people, each one more pathetic and illiterate than the last.
  — Madeleine Kearns, National Review, 17 Sep. 2020
• In fact, the most profound effects were found in people who were illiterate and had no education.
  — Martha Shade, CNN, 23 Oct. 2020
• The pattern is foolproof for those from the most style illiterate to the most fashion-forward, and L.L.Bean's softer, warmer take—in a hoodie nonetheless—is surefire for any guy.
  — Christian Gollayan, Men's Health, 16 Nov. 2022
• The novel is narrated by August Epp, a gentle schoolteacher and the only man trusted by the women, who are illiterate, to serve as the scribe of their meetings.
  — Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2022
• Not scoring in the proficient range does not mean students are illiterate.
  — Detroit Free Press, 24 Oct. 2022
• The day of the nikah, my sister and I are frantic helping to fix everything that has been done wrong by the tradesmen and laborers who have set it all up with the crooked eye and cheerful laziness of the illiterate.
  — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harper’s Magazine , 4 Jan. 2022
• The working class, often being illiterate, may not have had their own family recipe book, but that doesn’t mean these women weren’t involved in the practice of home health care.
  — Olivia Campbell, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Mar. 2021
• Based on reports, some were illiterate and many were desperate for birth control.
  — Theresa Vargas, Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2023
• At its center was a young charming illiterate kleptomaniac — a hero for the times — Steve Jones, who became in his own words, the 94th greatest guitarist of all time.
  — Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 29 Mar. 2022
• Tracts like his aimed to calm the neighbors—the literate ones, at least, who could share the advice with the illiterate—by giving them a sense of control over a collective predicament that was, in fact, in nobody’s hands.
  — Spencer Strub, The New York Review of Books, 25 Mar. 2020
• Little Dog serves as a translator to his mother, who is illiterate.
  — Maris Kreizman, WSJ, 4 June 2019
• The book is presented as a loving letter to his illiterate mother.
  — Lakshmi Gandhi, NBC News, 4 June 2019

Last Updated: 28 May 2024