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.
  • Fifty percent of girls are out of school, and more are illiterate.
    — Carolyn Giardina, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Jan. 2018
  • Some are illiterate and don’t know how to spell the children’s names.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 20 June 2018
  • Some are illiterate and don't know how to spell the children's names.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, 21 June 2018
  • They were kept illiterate, by law.
    — Chadd Scott, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2025
  • 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
  • Yet most children get fewer than six years of schooling and one in nine is illiterate.
    — The Economist, 11 Jan. 2018
  • It could also be used to flag someone as illiterate earlier on in their prison stay.
    — Julia O'Donoghue, NOLA.com, 16 Aug. 2017
  • The rest of the world was still illiterate, betting on oral traditions and local deities.
    — Reuven Brenner, WSJ, 10 May 2018
  • In centuries past, a town crier would read out the news or announcements to villagers, many of them illiterate.
    — Mimi Montgomery, Axios, 26 Nov. 2024
  • Naïve little girls growing up illiterate in a conflict zone.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2026
  • Based on reports, some were illiterate and many were desperate for birth control.
    — Theresa Vargas, Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2023
  • Not scoring in the proficient range does not mean students are illiterate.
    — Detroit Free Press, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Around the world, 750 million adults are illiterate, most of them women.
    — Shay Maunz, Glamour, 8 Sep. 2017
  • 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
  • Few of the new arrivals spoke English, and many were illiterate in their native languages.
    — Ted Genoways, New Republic, 15 May 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
  • In fact, the most profound effects were found in people who were illiterate and had no education.
    — Martha Shade, CNN, 23 Oct. 2020
  • 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
  • The mother of twelve children (ten of whom survived to adulthood), Zhor was illiterate.
    — Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Most are either illiterate or have a primary school degree, and about half are housewives, Labouni said.
    — Fox News, 8 Mar. 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
  • 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
  • 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 sort of person known to spend bus rides teaching illiterate teammates how to read, a process likely guided by a primer text booklet, Kendrick said.
    — Kansas City Star, 1 May 2026
  • 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
  • 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 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

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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