subliterate

American  

[suhb-lit-er-it] / sʌbˈlɪt ər ɪt /

adjective

1. less than fully literate.

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Etymology

Origin of subliterate

First recorded in 1945–50; sub- + literate

Example Sentences

Back in the benighted 20th century comic books were seen as subliterate trash for kiddies and intellectually challenged adults – badly written, hastily drawn and execrably printed.

From The Guardian

Perhaps the emotional quotient was juvenile, but the reading level was above subliterate.

From Slate

To test that the words he was reading are above the subliterate level, I ran a few of his remarks through the Flesh–Kincaid calculator.

From Slate

She describes the reaction to Spritz––a smartphone app that trains you to read faster by feeding you e-books one flashing word at a time––as “near-hysterical”; before the app was even launched, the Atlantic and the New Yorker were condemning its promotion of a shallow and inauthentic engagement with texts, more suitable, as Heffernan puts it, for “subliterate business types who have to read” than literary minds who do so for pleasure or self-enlargement.

From Slate

Perhaps most memorably, he played Mongo, a hulking subliterate outlaw who delivers a knockout punch to a horse, in the Mel Brooks western spoof “Blazing Saddles.”

From New York Times