Membean is an incredibly effective way to learn words and permanently remember them.
Learn more on how we help for
Test Prep,
Personal Learning,
or get it for your
School.
You can describe something as abstruse if you find it highly complicated and difficult to understand.
Acuity is sharpness or clearness of vision, hearing, or thought.
Acumen is the ability to make quick decisions and keen, precise judgments.
When you are adept at something, you are very good, skillful, or talented at it.
Someone who is adroit is skillful and clever, especially in thought, behavior, or action.
When you describe someone as astute, you think they quickly understand situations or behavior and use it to their advantage.
Calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting using special pens or brushes.
Someone who is callow is young, immature, and inexperienced; consequently, they possess little knowledge of the world.
The word cerebral refers to the brain and/or its intellectual capability.
When you discern something, you notice, detect, or understand it, often after thinking about it carefully or studying it for some time.
If you elucidate something, you make it easier to understand by giving more relevant information.
Someone or something that is enigmatic is mysterious and difficult to understand.
Someone who is erudite is steeped in knowledge because they have read and studied extensively.
If you fathom something complicated or mysterious, you are able to understand it.
If an idea or thought is incisive, it is expressed in a penetrating and knowledgeable manner that is clear and brief; additionally, it can demonstrate impressive understanding of related ideas or thoughts.
Someone who is inept is unable or unsuitable to do a job; hence, they are unfit for it.
The intelligentsia of a society are those individuals who are the most highly educated.
If you describe something as nebulous, you mean that it is unclear, vague, and not clearly defined; a shape that is nebulous has no clear boundaries.
If you are oblivious to something that is happening, you do not notice it.
Someone is obtuse when they are slow to understand things; someone can choose to be obtuse when they deliberately do not try to figure things out.
Something is opaque if it is either difficult to understand or is not transparent.
Orthography is the art of correct spelling.
Someone who demonstrates perspicacity notices or understands things very quickly.
A polyglot is someone who can speak or understand many languages.
A polymath is a person who knows a great deal about many different subjects.
A precocious child shows advanced intelligence or skill at an unusually young age.
Someone who is prescient knows or is able to predict what will happen in the future.
When someone exhibits profundity, they display great intellectual depth and understanding; profundity can also be the depth or complexity of something.
Someone who is refined is very well educated; they understand much about cultures around the world.
A sagacious person is wise, intelligent, and has the ability to make good practical decisions.
A savant is a person who knows a lot about a subject, either via a lifetime of learning or by considerable natural ability.
A tyro has just begun learning something.
If you behave in an urbane way, you are behaving in a polite, refined, and civilized fashion in social situations.
Something that is vacuous is empty or blank, such as a mind or stare.
A yokel is uneducated, naive, and unsophisticated; they do not know much about modern life or ideas because they sequester themselves in a rural setting.
Adj.
unlettered
uhn-LET-erd
Context
Despite our city government’s efforts to improve education, we still have a large sector of society that remains unlettered, that is, unable to read and write. These unlettered individuals cannot read documents or write on them; therefore, they are unable to fill out a job application without help. Of course, because they are unlettered, they are missing out on the joys of word-based knowledge, which includes communicating through writing and poring over excellent books. Unless we come up with a way to better educate our unlettered population, we risk having an entire generation of unaware and unread people that must use an X to sign their own names.
No Letters for the Unlettered The unlettered cannot read because they either don't know their letters, or are unable to use them to form words.
Examples
While statistics do not exist on the number of unlettered entrepreneurs, one out of every five American adults is functionally illiterate—that is, can’t read at the sixth-grade level.
—
CNN
A poor unlettered cobbler who had emigrated from Grodno, Russia, the grandfather’s last ride was to a county hospital in a police ambulance.
—
Sports Illustrated
One last stipulation [of the statute] was that each party had to have a logo, in part to aid the unlettered, since back then any Alabaman who could not read would cast a ballot simply by looking at the symbol appearing next to a candidate’s name.
—
The Atlantic
Women now steer local governance in thousands of villages. This revolution led to the discovery of several hidden gems and one of them is Shalan Shelke, an intrepid and passionate woman with a unique brand of earnestness and determination. She has galvanized the poor, unlettered women in Sangamner, a remote corner of India’s deep hinterland.
—
The Daily Pioneer
An unlettered person does “not” know how to use the “letters of the alphabet,” and therefore he can “not” read or write a “document.”
Word Theater
Looney Tunes Benny is unlettered.
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!
Word Constellation
Click for an interactive map of this word
Related Words
callow ·
enigmatic ·
inept+ ·
nebulous ·
oblivious ·
obtuse ·
opaque ·
tyro ·
vacuous ·
yokel ·
abstruse ·
acuity ·
acumen ·
adept ·
adroit ·
astute ·
calligraphy ·
cerebral+ ·
discern ·
elucidate ·
erudite ·
fathom ·
incisive ·
intelligentsia+ ·
orthography+ ·
perspicacity ·
polyglot ·
polymath ·
precocious ·
prescient ·
profundity ·
refined+ ·
sagacious ·
savant ·
urbane ·
Similar sense
Opposite sense
Word Variants
lettered
adj
→
able to read and write; literate
The section lists important variants and alternate definitions of the headword. Knowing variants will often help you both remember and understand the word. Not all variants are listed - only the ones we think that are important for you to know.
