analphabete

A1N1A1L1P3H4A1B3E1T1E1

A form of analphabet — A person who does not know the letters of the alphabet; a partly or wholly illiterate person.

Scrabble 18

Meanings

nounanalphabete (plural analphabetes)

plural analphabetes

  1. alternativerareAlternative spelling of analphabet.

    In 1861, out of a total population of 21,777,331, there were no less than 16,999,701 "analphabetes," or persons absolutely unable to read.

    1896, J[ohn] M[orrison] Reid, J. T. Gracey, “Part XI. Mission to Italy.”, in Missions and the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church […] In Three Volumes, volume III, New York, N.Y.: Hunt & Eaton; Cincinnati, Oh.: Cranston & Curts, section 7 (Annual Conferences, 1886–1887), page 327
    2 more examples

    The Beckettian progression appears occasionally: while Miss Counihan (static) is an omnivorous reader and Murphy (transitional) a strict non-reader, Cooper is an analphabete.

    1968, Robert [Ligon] Harrison, Samuel Beckett’s Murphy: A Critical Excursion (University of Georgia Monographs; no. 15), Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, →OCLC, page 57

    The porter was an analphabete, but together / we found your name, down among the Os, / and there you were, my brave love, / in a loose hospital gown that covered nothing; […]

    1986, Michael Hofmann, “From A to B and Back Again”, in Frank Ormsby, Robert Johnstone, editors, The Honest Ulsterman, number 82, Belfast: Michael Stephens, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 16; reprinted in Mark Ford, editor, London: A History in Verse, Cambridge, Mass.; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012, →ISBN, page 704
adjectiveanalphabete (comparative more analphabete, superlative most analphabete)

comparative more analphabete · superlative most analphabete

  1. alternativerareAlternative spelling of analphabet.

    All these love tales are in verse, transmitted up to this day, through countless generations of oral tradition by an analphabete people with an inborn, unerring sense of art.

    1965, Commonweal, volume 82, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 325, column 1

Origin

  1. Frenchanalphabète
  2. Englishanalphabete

Borrowed from French analphabète.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

analphabete. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/analphabete

MLA

“analphabete.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/analphabete. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “analphabete,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/analphabete.

Source: analphabete on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.