adjective

• Unable to read or write.

  ‘nonliterate cultures’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Freire viewed literacy and continuing education as a means for democratization of culture among the rural and urban non-literate people.’
  • ‘They come from humble backgrounds and some are non-literate, but what they all share is a desire to serve others.’
  • ‘This essay has shown how newspapers helped to create and shape an informal system of education for both literate and non-literate Spaniards.’
  • ‘The non-literate women married at around 16 and literate women at 17.5.’
  • ‘School outcomes create categories of literate and non-literate.’
  • ‘These non-literate people were fighting to protect their ancestral homelands and their way of life.’
  • ‘Body language is extremely important, particularly in non-literate or semi-literate societies.’
  • ‘The bonded workers, frequently non-literate, have no choice but to depend on the word of the employer about when the loans are finally paid off.’
  • ‘A traditionally non-literate culture has a strong understanding of learning things by memory.’
  • ‘The methods of secular musicians, whose traditions were largely non-literate, were doubtless more informal, though in the 15th century a repertory of courtly dances based on written cantus firmi developed: the bassadanza or basse danse and associated forms.’

  Synonyms

  primitive, uncivilized, unenlightened, in a state of nature, heathen