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[ adjective ] ignorant of the fundamentals of a given art or branch of knowledge
Synonyms Examples "ignorant of quantum mechanics" "musically illiterate" Used in print (Bell I. Wiley, "Home Letters of Johnny Reb and Billy...)A Mississippi soldier wrote : `` Our General_Reub_Davis is a vain , stuck-up , illiterate ass '' . (A.L. Kroeber, "Semantic Contribution of Lexicostatistic...)These differences in_turn result from the fact that my Yokuts vocabularies were built_up of terms selected mainly to insure unambiguity of English meaning between illiterate informants and myself , within a compact and uniform territorial area , but that Hoijer 's vocabulary is based_on Swadesh 's second glottochronological list which aims at eliminating all items which might be culturally or geographically determined . Related terms |
| 2 |
[ adjective ] not able to read or write
Used in print (Tristram P. Coffin, "Folklore in the American Twentieth...)Though it may exist in either literate or illiterate societies , it assumes a role of true cultural importance only in the latter . |
| 3 |
[ noun ] a person unable to read
Synonyms Related terms |
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