literate

¹lit·er·ate

adjective \ˈli-tə-rət also ˈli-trət\

Definition of LITERATE

1

a : educated, cultured

b : able to read and write

2

a : versed in literature or creative writing : literary

b : lucid, polished <a literate essay>

c : having knowledge or competence <computer-literate> <politically literate>

— lit·er·ate·ly adverb

— lit·er·ate·ness noun

Examples of LITERATE

1. She is literate in both English and Spanish.
2. What percentage of the population is literate?
3. The job requires you to be computer literate.

Origin of LITERATE

Middle English literat, from Latin litteratus marked with letters, literate, from litterae letters, literature, from plural of littera

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to LITERATE

Synonyms

erudite, knowledgeable, learned, lettered, educated, scholarly, well-read

Antonyms

benighted, dark, ignorant, illiterate, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unscholarly

Related Words

civilized, cultivated, cultured; cerebral, highbrow, highbrowed, intellectual; polished, refined, well-bred; academic (also academical), bookish, didactic, didactical, inkhorn, pedantic, professorial; informed, instructed, schooled, skilled, trained; homeschooled, self-educated, self-instructed, self-taught; briefed, enlightened, informed, versed; overeducated, polyhistoric, polymath (or polymathic)

Near Antonyms

uncivilized, uncultivated, uncultured; lowbrow, semiliterate, unintellectual; ill-bred, unpolished, unrefined; uninformed, unknowledgeable; uninstructed, unschooled, untaught, untutored; semiliterate, undereducated

Other Literature Terms

apophasis, bathos, bildungsroman, bowdlerize, caesura, coda, doggerel, euphemism, poesy, prosody

²literate

noun

Definition of LITERATE

1

: an educated person

2

: a person who can read and write

First Known Use of LITERATE

circa 1550

Other Education Terms

baccalaureate, colloquium, corequisite, dissertation, monograph, pedant, practicum, survey course, thesis