unliterary
adjective
un·lit·er·ary
ˌən-ˈli-tə-ˌrer-ē 
: not literary
D. H. Lawrence died in March 1930, when I was just 13 years old and too unliterary to notice.—
Anthony Burgess
Anthony BurgessMr. Singer was a modest man with an unassuming and unliterary style of life: he liked to wear plain business suits and he preferred dairy restaurants to writers' bars.—Eric Pace
Eric Pace
Synonyms
Examples of unliterary in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The bond between Alice and the spiky, decidedly unliterary Felix might flummox.
—New York Times, 1 Sep. 2021
Both were born as writers in public libraries—hyper-bright American Jewish urban boys from unliterary backgrounds, encountering the classics on their own, without too much pre-sorting, responding with delight, imitation, amusement, and familiarity.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 24 Aug. 2021
New York Times, 1 Sep. 2021
Both were born as writers in public libraries—hyper-bright American Jewish urban boys from unliterary backgrounds, encountering the classics on their own, without too much pre-sorting, responding with delight, imitation, amusement, and familiarity.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 24 Aug. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unliterary.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
1788, in the meaning defined above
Dictionary Entries Near unliterary
Cite this Entry
“Unliterary.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unliterary. Accessed 23 Sep. 2023.
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