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Definition 2024


analphabetic

analphabetic

English

Adjective

analphabetic (comparative more analphabetic, superlative most analphabetic)

  1. (not comparable) (of symbols) Not alphabetic.
  2. (comparable) (of a person) Illiterate, unable to read or write.
    • 1935, George Orwell, Burmese Days, Chapter 19,
      His system of exchange was that for any book in his bundle you gave him four annas, and any other book. Not quite any book, however, for the book-wallah, though analphabetic, had learned to recognize and refuse a Bible.

Noun

analphabetic (plural analphabetics)

  1. An illiterate person.
    • 1979, Nadine Gordimer, Burger's Daughter, Penguin, 1980, p. 267,
      At press conferences you hear a visiting statesman so eloquent in his own language—and then suddenly he tries a few words in French...an idiot speaking, an analphabetic from some wretched forgotten hamlet learning to read at the age of seventy.—