as in ignorant
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Recent Examples of functionally illiterate
Stillman, like Goodnow and many other teachers, noted that AI can help tailor her lessons for students of different abilities, creating more-advanced activities for higher-performing students and more-basic tasks for students who are functionally illiterate in English.
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Jared Perlo, NBC news, 22 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for functionally illiterate
Adjective
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On its face, the government's defense appears to be that the individuals behind these statements are ignorant or incompetent, or both.—
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The citizens of Oz are treated as no more than an undifferentiated crowd of extras, an ignorant and finally disposable monolith.—
Adjective
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Which is to say, this isn’t the story of a greedy, materialistic man who suffers a crisis of conscience while trying to pry a priceless treasure away from an uneducated hick who doesn’t know any better.—
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The people who looked Indigenous were the uneducated characters, the cartoon characters.—
Adjective
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This cooking competition show takes a group of kitchen illiterate recruits and puts them through a culinary bootcamp designed to instill them with basic food prep skills.—
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The real Nixon is often lumped in with our current President, but this is historically illiterate.—
Adjective
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Such a practice would have been especially useful in nonliterate societies where knowledge was transmitted orally.—
Adjective
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Even with Dibble effortlessly laying waste to every point and argument made by his benighted co-guest, Joe Rogan remained unconvinced.—
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With the midterm election still nearly a year off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — many of those angry or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately wanted to do something to push back.—
Adjective
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But like any socialized behavior, this mindset can be unlearned.—
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Those afflicted with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often behave in a manner which the unlearned (or uncaring) will immediately label as criminal.—
Adjective
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No untutored voice, nor even sound of rushing car disturbed the seemingly sacred stillness of the hour.—
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His savage, untutored mind suggested no better way than that of wreaking vengeance upon those who had wronged him.—
Adjective
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By comparison, Danceny is practically a boy, unschooled in the art of manipulation, and Reeves provides the character with the appropriate youthful naïveté.—
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Whether these findings map onto kids who are unschooled in the context of worldschooling remains to be seen without systematic longitudinal studies; anecdotal evidence from the parents in my research suggests mixed results.—
Cite this Entry
“Functionally illiterate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/functionally%20illiterate. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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