Literate

//ˈlɪtəɹət// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who is able to read and write.
  2. 2
    a person who can read and write wordnet
  3. 3
    A person who was educated but had not taken a university degree; especially a candidate to take holy orders. historical
Adjective
  1. 1
    Able to read and write; having literacy.

    "Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate."

  2. 2
    Knowledgeable in literature, writing; literary; well-read.

    "The reason literature plays a unique role in any literate culture is its longevity."

  3. 3
    Which is used in writing (of a language or dialect).

    "The Mongol emperor Kublai Khan even commissioned an alphabetic script for his empire, to be used officially for all its literate languages, Mongolian, Chinese, Turkic and Persian."

Adjective
  1. 1
    knowledgeable and educated in one or several fields wordnet
  2. 2
    versed in literature; dealing with literature wordnet
  3. 3
    able to read and write wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
educatedabstrusebelletristicbrahminbrainworkercivilized

Example

More examples

"While American methods are often successful, the Japanese educational system that produces the most literate people in the world surely has some lessons to teach the U.S."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English litterate, borrowed from Latin lītterātus, līterātus, see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix). Doublet of literato and literatus.

Related phrases

computer literatee-literatefood-literateliterate programmingtake holy orderswell read

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.