unlettered
Americanadjective
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not educated; uneducated; untutored; ignorant.
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not literate; illiterate.
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not marked with letters, as a tombstone.
adjective
-
uneducated; illiterate
-
not marked with letters
an unlettered tombstone
Related Words
See ignorant.
Etymology
Origin of unlettered
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Rendered on the page in glyph-laden phonetic spellings that are apt to confound the unlettered, these words take wing when released into sound.
From Seattle Times
In this tribal village, most parents are unlettered and unable to help their young children study at home.
From BBC
Federal Judge Elmer Dundy ruled that “the Indian is a ‘person’ ” under the Constitution — but not without also referring to Native Americans as a “weak, insignificant, unlettered, and generally despised race.”
From Washington Post
He was not an unlettered man: In his years at school, Calhoun had written a master’s thesis on the historiography of Napoleon’s peninsular war and had attended a law seminar in Belgium.
From Seattle Times
“He suffers the pangs of poverty of intellect. His perception is clouded. . . . He’s an empty-headed, long-eared, bleary-eyed, awkward, untutored, unlettered, hopeless misprint.”
From Washington Post
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
