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Definition
able to read and writeMore rarely, literate can refer to knowledge in a particular subject area as in: "She is computer literate."
Occasionally literate is also used to indicate a knowledge of literature or writing as in: "I don't remember the name of Odysseus' wife. Ask Susan. She's one of the more literate people I know." or "If you want a highly literate record of the minutes, ask Susan to record them."
- Only 25% of adults are literate in that country.
literate = able to read and write
- If you're literate and can access the Internet, you can get answers to millions of questions.
- I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste.Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird
- By the autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree.George Orwell -- Animal Farm
- The minister was literate.Octavia Butler -- Kindred
- The German literate reversed this process with the profane French literature.Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels -- The Communist Manifesto
- ... My lover was no evil man, no blind follower of the regime, but a literate man, a gentle man, and a believer in eternal China!Robert Ludlum -- The Bourne Supremacy
- In front of one of the benevolent associations, a literate man was chanting the Gold Mountain News, which was taped to the window.Maxine Hong Kingston -- The Woman Warrior
- Always a few literate junkies.Don DeLillo -- Underworld
- I'll be one of the few demonstrably literate people ever to graduate from this school, Colonel.Pat Conroy -- The Lords of Discipline
- Some of them, but not many, were even literate.Tim Tebow -- Through My Eyes
- He has always associated with the learned, the gentle, the literate, and the reasonable both in France and in America.John Steinbeck -- Travels with Charley
- "Martin, Martin, Martin," she said, "the population of literate people has been declining steadily since Gutenberg's day.Dan Simmons -- Hyperion
- With that, Eragon began the task of becoming literate.Christopher Paolini -- Eragon
- They had called the college paper, and someone had told them I was halfway literate.Rick Bragg -- All Over but the Shoutin'
- He listens as Lincoln talks of extending suffrage to literate blacks and those who fought for the Union.Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard -- Killing Lincoln
- We were fully literate in nu shu, and when we were apart we wrote each other almost daily.Lisa See -- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
- The poor child was hardly literate.Ford Madox Ford -- The Good Soldier
- It'll be like you're literate.Chris Crutcher -- Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
- If Will were as literate as Guy, or Guy were as executive as Will, I think I could endure even Gopher Prairie.Sinclair Lewis -- Main Street
literate = able to read and write
literate = able to read
literate = able to read and write