illiterate

Raised by a single mother in Korogocho, one of Nairobi's poorest informal settlements, Marius describes himself as "something like illiterate", and sees few options in a country where 40 percent live below the poverty line.

From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026

In this adaptation, Anna Bowden had been Cady’s defense attorney, and he’s no longer an illiterate rube but a successful restaurateur who was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn son.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026

Because many colonists were illiterate, the Declaration was commonly declaimed by local officials in town squares and preachers in pulpits.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026

In her second term, she introduced a constitutional amendment to reserve 45 seats in the legislature for female MPs, and worked to educate young women - in a country where 70% of them were illiterate.

From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025

Hassan taught him to read and write—his son was not going to grow up illiterate like he had.

From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

Poetry — which prompts you with rhymes — is far easier to memorize than prose, so even illiterates could hear it and pass it along.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 18, 2020

The unintended consequences of do-goodism by cultural illiterates.

From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2018

Thus, contract laborers were excluded in 1885, immoral persons and anarchists in 1903, and illiterates in 1917.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2016

Female illiteracy levels in India are high; indeed it is estimated that there are more female illiterates in India than in the rest of the world combined.

From Forbes ● Feb. 23, 2015

Of the 5,500,000 illiterates as reported by the census of 1910, nearly 3,225,000 were whites, and more than 1,500,000 were native-born whites.

From Conservation Through Engineering Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior by Lane, Franklin K.