preliterate
Americanadjective
-
lacking a written language; nonliterate.
a preliterate culture.
-
occurring before the development or use of writing.
adjective
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Other Word Forms
- preliteracy noun
Etymology
Origin of preliterate
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.
Myths themselves commonly embody the religious beliefs of ancient or preliterate peoples, but Philip Ball suggests that we are still generating them.
From Washington Post
In the meantime, however, cultural anthropologists and human rights organisations abhor the inevitable implication that preliterate people live in chronic violence.
From The Guardian
One reason I learned to read was so that I could understand “hard books” like “Little Women,” which was read aloud to me as a preliterate child.
From New York Times
How can we ever hope to wrest the answers to those questions from Africa’s preliterate past, lacking the written evidence that teaches us about the spread of the Roman Empire?
From Literature
He wrote, “Death is as certain as tomorrow’s sunrise, but for our ancestors living in the distant, preliterate past, death arrived unbidden, unannounced and unexplained.”
From Forbes
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.
