as in ignorant
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for functionally illiterate
Adjective
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Joe is willfully ignorant—to national news and a lethal pandemic—but Aster didn’t write the character as a one-dimensional MAGA standee.—
Madison Bloom,
Pitchfork,
17 July 2025 -
Yet Americans are surprisingly ignorant about our past.—
John C. Goodman,
Forbes.com,
29 July 2025
Adjective
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Still, despite the glut of legal graduates, his shift in focus was an unusual move for an ambitious young man in a country where farming is seen as a job for old, uneducated or poor people.—
Carmen Abd Ali,
New York Times,
20 Apr. 2025
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The Catholic Church openly collaborated with the Ustaše, whose support came largely from young men with rural, blue-collar, uneducated backgrounds.—
Larry Luxner,
Sun Sentinel,
5 May 2025
Adjective
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This was particularly important given that much of their peasant audience was illiterate, Palmer explains.—
Danny Robb,
JSTOR Daily,
8 Aug. 2025
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My mother lived as a refugee, as an illiterate nail tech.—
Ocean Vuong
June 4,
Literary Hub,
4 June 2025
Adjective
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Americans think of Argentina as a benighted third-world nation.—
Steven Greenhut,
Oc Register,
15 Aug. 2025
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Trump has talked up the idea of moving the Palestinians out of Gaza, even suggesting transforming one of the most benighted places on earth into some kind of coastal resort.—
Niall Stanage,
The Hill,
3 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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Those afflicted with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often behave in a manner which the unlearned (or uncaring) will immediately label as criminal.—
Killian Baarlaer,
The Courier-Journal,
6 Sep. 2024
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Although the 1973 commission’s report ran to 2,200 pages, some big lessons from 1973 may have gone unlearned—lessons that Israel needed to understand then and still does now.—
Uri Kaufman,
Foreign Affairs,
20 Oct. 2023
Adjective
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No untutored voice, nor even sound of rushing car disturbed the seemingly sacred stillness of the hour.—
Erin Alberty,
Axios,
14 Apr. 2025
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His savage, untutored mind suggested no better way than that of wreaking vengeance upon those who had wronged him.—
Liz Tracey,
JSTOR Daily,
21 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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Whether these findings map onto kids who are unschooled in the context of worldschooling remains to be seen without systematic longitudinal studies; anecdotal evidence from the parents in my research suggests mixed results.—
Jennie Germann Molz,
Scientific American,
21 Oct. 2024
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Some research also suggests that children who are unschooled underperform on academic assessments, particularly regarding reading.—
Ej Dickson,
Rolling Stone,
24 June 2024
Adjective
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Still, with this inspirational true story, the streamer stands to reach a much wider public than Perry’s typical audience, reminding how much of American history remains untaught and largely untold.—
Peter Debruge,
Variety,
6 Dec. 2024
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Until recent years, the story of how this period affected California’s Indigenous peoples had largely gone untaught or underrecognized.—
Anne Wallentine,
Smithsonian Magazine,
17 June 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Functionally illiterate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/functionally%20illiterate. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025.
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