All 3 Uses of
literate
in
1984, by Orwell
- The Party claimed, for example, that today 40 per cent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 — and so it went on.†
p. 74.8 *literate = able to read and write
- In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient — a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete — was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person.†
p. 189.1
- For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.†
p. 190.3
Definitions:
-
(1)
(literate) able to read and write
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More 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."