Crossword clues for preliterate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
a. 1 (context of a culture English) that has not yet developed a written language 2 (context of a person English) who has not yet learned to read and write n. a member of such a culture
WordNet
adj. not yet having acquired the ability to read and write
used of a society that has not developed writing [syn: nonliterate]
Usage examples of "preliterate".
He was a primitive, and all primitives, civilized or preliterate, were tribal people.
As is usually the case in a preliterate society, the fellows in the taverns loved to listen to stories, and I could make up stories with the best.
This makes me laugh, since the thousands of noble Trojans and Argives battling here are all as preliterate as two-year-olds.
I could never decide whether this was incongruously high-tech or whether it was an organic extension of their preliterate oral tradition.
There was ample precedent for the wisdom of leaving a preliterate culture in strict isolation, so the expedition withdrew.
It is remarkable how many such legends survive among preliterate cultures of an earlier matriarchal period and a violent uprising by men in which they usurped female authority.
How did one explain that to an iron-age warrior in a preliterate world?
Being preliterate, and having no other form of contract, the People put great weight on oaths.
But then, if we attempt to relate the characteristics of a preliterate urban cultural configuration.
Fires built by preliterate peoples in modern times have often produced small quantities of metals.
That is the importance of old people to their entire tribe in preliterate societies, which constituted every human society in the world from the time of human origins until the rise of writing in Mesopotamia around 3300 b.
We find it impossible to conceive of the overwhelming importance of elderly people in preliterate societies as repositories of information and experience.
Anishnabeg were a preliterate people who shared tribal wisdom through storytelling, memorable tales that always had a point.
The ancient Anishnabeg were a preliterate people who shared tribal wisdom through storytelling, memorable tales that always had a point.
Yet the twins would knock at this wall, to assure themselves that the other was really there, and they would smear their food on the wall, almost as a form of finger painting-a preliterate communication among siblings.