as in ignorant
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Recent Examples of functionally illiterate
Stillman, like Goodnow and many other teachers, noted that AI can help tailor her lessons for students of different abilities, creating more-advanced activities for higher-performing students and more-basic tasks for students who are functionally illiterate in English.
—
Jared Perlo, NBC news, 22 Dec. 2025
Jared Perlo, NBC news, 22 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for functionally illiterate
Adjective
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Walz said children fear aggressive agents; critics called the comparison ignorant and offensive.—
Staff,
FOXNews.com,
29 Jan. 2026
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One of Johnson’s former Cowboys superstars, Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, called voters who ignored Belichick ignorant.—
Lawrence Dow,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
28 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Obama just went about his job and didn’t send untrained, uneducated wannabe stormtroopers into cities to intimidate people with tremendous shows of force.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
3 Feb. 2026
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Additionally, data released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in September revealed that nearly half of the country’s youth population, aged 18 to 30, is unemployed, uneducated, or lacking training.—
Nimi Princewill,
CNN Money,
14 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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An illiterate laborer and cook, Lee joined the Shaking Quaker sect in 1758.—
Claire Messud,
Vogue,
8 Jan. 2026
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This cooking competition show takes a group of kitchen illiterate recruits and puts them through a culinary bootcamp designed to instill them with basic food prep skills.—
Ilana Gordon,
Entertainment Weekly,
30 Dec. 2025
Adjective
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Such a practice would have been especially useful in nonliterate societies where knowledge was transmitted orally.—
Amanda Fortini,
New York Times,
12 Nov. 2020
Adjective
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Even with Dibble effortlessly laying waste to every point and argument made by his benighted co-guest, Joe Rogan remained unconvinced.—
Rafael Perez,
Oc Register,
1 Dec. 2025
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With the midterm election still nearly a year off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — many of those angry or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately wanted to do something to push back.—
Mark Z. Barabak,
Mercury News,
8 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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Peeta explained unlearned stimuli cause AVs to simply stop.—
Doug Turnbull,
AJC.com,
25 Jan. 2026
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Old fears or old power struggles can become poison if unprocessed, if the lessons remain unlearned.—
Magi Helena,
Dallas Morning News,
15 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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No untutored voice, nor even sound of rushing car disturbed the seemingly sacred stillness of the hour.—
Erin Alberty,
Axios,
14 Apr. 2025
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His savage, untutored mind suggested no better way than that of wreaking vengeance upon those who had wronged him.—
Liz Tracey,
JSTOR Daily,
21 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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By comparison, Danceny is practically a boy, unschooled in the art of manipulation, and Reeves provides the character with the appropriate youthful naïveté.—
Tim Grierson,
Vulture,
18 Oct. 2025
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Whether these findings map onto kids who are unschooled in the context of worldschooling remains to be seen without systematic longitudinal studies; anecdotal evidence from the parents in my research suggests mixed results.—
Jennie Germann Molz,
Scientific American,
21 Oct. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Functionally illiterate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/functionally%20illiterate. Accessed 14 Feb. 2026.
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