analphabetic

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an·al·pha·bet·ic

(ăn-ăl′fə-bĕt′ĭk)

adj.

1. Not alphabetical.

2. Unable to read; illiterate.

One who is unable to read; an illiterate.

[From Greek analphabētos, not knowing the alphabet : an-, not; see a-¹ + alphabētos, alphabet; see alphabet.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

analphabetic

(ˌænælfəˈbɛtɪk; ænˌæl-)

adj

not in alphabetical order

n, adj

a less common word for illiterate

[C20: from Greek analphabētos; see an-, alphabet]

ˌanalphaˈbetically adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

analphabetic

1. unable to read or write.
2. descriptive of a language written without an alphabet; that is, with a syllabary (Cherokee), in hieroglyphics (ancient Egyptian), in ideograms (Chinese) , or in pictograms (American Indian).

See also: Alphabet

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Noun	1.	analphabetic - an illiterate person who does not know the alphabet analphabet illiterate, illiterate person, nonreader - a person unable to read
Adj.	1.	analphabetic - relating to or expressed by a writing system that is not alphabetic alphabetic, alphabetical - relating to or expressed by a writing system that uses an alphabet; "alphabetical writing system"
	2.	analphabetic - not alphabetic; "an analphabetic arrangement of letters"; "Jesperson's system of phonetic transcription is analphabetic" alphabetic, alphabetical - arranged in order according to the alphabet; "an alphabetic arrangement"; "dictionaries list words in alphabetical order"
	3.	analphabetic - having little acquaintance with writing; "special tutorials to assist the unlettered sector of society" unlettered illiterate - not able to read or write

Translations

illettré

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References in periodicals archive ?

The literature scholar Hertha Wong analyzed pre-Columbian Native American oral and pictographic "autobiography" texts in her pioneering 1992 study, Sending My Heart Back Across the Years; before this another literature scholar, Arnold Krupat, formulated the concept of "original bicultural composite composition" to describe the complex relations of authorship and self-reference in "autobiographies" ascribed to analphabetic Native Americans, but actually written down and published by non-indigenous settlers in the nineteenth century.

Egodocuments and history: a short account of the Longue Duree

It is possible that simple minded analphabetic people with no education, but with a compensatory rich universe of imagination, had to find "mythical" explanations for any natural phenomenon, unknown diseases, or even for the consequences that the members of the communities had to endure for some malicious acts, for crimes which needed an intervention for the instauration of justice, keeping the laws of a social, ethical, aesthetical equilibrium.