literate

• litterate (obsolete)

From Middle English litterate, from Latin līterātus, litterātus. Doublet of literato and literatus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪtəɹət/

• Audio (Southern England):

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literate (comparative more literate, superlative most literate)

1. Able to read and write; having literacy.

   Antonym: illiterate

   • 1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings‎^[1], New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 86:

     Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.

   • 2025 September 8, “Himachal Pradesh becomes ‘fully literate State’. CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu says the literacy rate in Himachal reached 99.30%, which is higher than the national benchmark of 95% with the hill State ranking first in student-teacher ratio”, in The Hindu‎^[2]:

     Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Monday (September 8, 2025) declared Himachal as a “fully literate State” on the occasion of International Literary Day. […] Journey from 7% to 99.30%: The Chief Minister said Himachal Pradesh had reached this goal well before the scheduled timeframe, adding that the journey from minimal literacy rate of around 7% to full literacy had been full of challenges, yet the State had consistently moved forward with the aim of providing quality education. […] Mr. Sukhu said the literacy rate in Himachal Pradesh had reached 99.30%, which is higher than the national benchmark of 95% […] Union Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar, in a video message, congratulated Himachal Pradesh on this achievement and emphasised the importance of providing skill-based education to the newly literate.

2. Knowledgeable in literature, writing; literary; well-read.
   • 2008 January 7, Charles Hugh Smith, Can a Fragmented Culture Find Common Ground?‎^[3]:

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

3. Which is used in writing (of a language or dialect).
   • 2005, Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, Harper:

     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.

literate (plural literates)

1. A person who is able to read and write.
2. (historical) A person who was educated but had not taken a university degree; especially a candidate to take holy orders.

• “literate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “literate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• laterite, teretial

līterāte

1. vocative masculine singular of līterātus

• "literate", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)