unlettered
[uhn-let-erd]
- not educated; uneducated; untutored; ignorant.
- not literate; illiterate.
- not marked with letters, as a tombstone.
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Origin of unlettered
Synonyms
See more synonyms for unlettered on Thesaurus.com1. See ignorant.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for unlettered
Contemporary Examples
In the novel, Newton takes up with a frumpy, unlettered Kentucky woman well into middle age.
‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ Is a Classic Twice over—as a Movie and a NovelMalcolm Jones
February 9, 2014
They were not designed via the epiphany of an unlettered Russian sergeant at a workbench, as fables would have it.
Historical Examples
I wonder still at the unlettered condition of the boys about me.
In the ValleyHarold Frederic
I held him to be a shallow, unlettered clown, devoid of any finer feelings.
The Shame of MotleyRaphael Sabatini
Foreigners were things which in his untraveled, unlettered ignorance he despised.
The Lion's SkinRafael Sabatini
He was unlettered, had never opened a book, and seemed to know little of the ways of men.
The ArenaVarious
His letters were the painful efforts of an unlettered mujik, as indeed he was.
The Minister of EvilWilliam Le Queux
unlettered
- uneducated; illiterate
- not marked with lettersan unlettered tombstone
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for unlettered
adj.
mid-14c., "not possessed of book-learning," from un- (1) "not" + lettered (see letter (n.)). An anglicized form of illiterate. Cf. Middle Dutch ongelettert.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper