Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not adept at reading and writing; deficient in the knowledge that can be acquired from books.
- adj. Illiterate.
- adj. Having no lettering: a plain, unlettered T-shirt.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Unlearned; untaught; ignorant; illiterate. Synonyms Illiterate, Unlearned, etc. See
ignorant .
Wiktionary
- adj. not instructed in letters; not well educated; unable to read
- adj. not expressed in or marked with letters
WordNet 3.0
- adj. uneducated in general; lacking knowledge or sophistication
- adj. having little acquaintance with writing
Etymologies
- un- + lettered (Wiktionary)
Examples
“He said that nobody with Trace's education would EVER used an "unlettered" dialect.”
“Leonardo described himself as "unlettered" because he was unable to read Latin, the language used by other Renaissance intellectuals.”
“This post with its piece of bark was neither more nor less than a letter, such as unlettered men in all ages have used for holding intercourse with absent friends.”
“The how and wherefore it is unnecessary to explain, but some of the cleverest and best-bred people of this well-bred and clever capital took us by the hand, all "unlettered" as we were, and from that moment, taking into consideration our tastes and my health, the question has been, not how to get into, but how to keep out of, the great world.”
“unlettered;" that they often conduce to the "tyranny of the unwise majority"; that they undermine parliaments, ties the hands of cabinets, and generally lead to weakened or ungovernable states.”
“Do these same people bother to go read to unlettered children, build for the disadvantaged, feed the hungry, hold a small child at an orphanage or clean the animal cages at a shelter?.”
“CNN, PLEASE, PLEASE stop featuring this unlettered and uneducated woman.”
“Sarah Palin is an unlettered, ignorant woman and ought to be ignored.”
“For the immense crowd of the unlettered, the multitude which had neither psalter nor missal and whose only book was the church, it was necessary to give concrete form to abstract thought.”
The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral - part 2
“And yet I found Colonel Ingram situated the same as the unlettered mechanics.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘unlettered’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Autological
They sound like their meaning
trog, ooze, scythe, melody, bogue, unlettered, gloomth, cagamosis, coldment, doom, pieman
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Un-word List
untrammelled, untoward, unenthusiastically, unenthusiastic, undaunted, uncanny, unceasing, unbridled, unacknowledged, unacquainted, unadorned, unaffected and 239 more...
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non-thinking
acquiescent, listless, assentive, complacent, unlettered, credulous, naive, docile, submissive, obsequious, subservient
Tweets
Looking for tweets for unlettered.

martagreen (adj): Illiterate. Mar 6, 2009