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.
• 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
• Nearly 30 percent of people over 15 are illiterate—the highest rate in the country.
  — Popular Science, 3 Aug. 2020
• When Pedro Almodóvar was a young boy, his mother would read and translate letters for their illiterate neighbors.
  — Stuart Miller, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sep. 2024
• 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

Last Updated: 13 Dec 2024