different between untaught vs unlettered

English

Etymology

un- +? taught

Adjective

untaught (comparative more untaught, superlative most untaught)

1. Not taught; uneducated.
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Again?t venemous tongues enpoy?oned with ?claunder and fal?e detractions &c.:

     My ?coles are not for unthriftes untaught,
     For frantick faitours half mad and half ?traught;
     But my learning is of another degree
     To taunt theim like liddrons, lewde as thei bee.

   • 2005, Christine Alexander, Juliet McMaster, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf (page 58)

     The gazing, the spying, and the ability to divine the eternal in the vivid manifestations of nature, here attributed to the young child, seem to be realised in this relatively untaught child of the woods of Oregon.

2. (not comparable) Not taught; not conveyed by means of instruction.
   • 1937, Manly Wade Wellman, School for the Unspeakable

     What they used to teach here
     Now goes untaught.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:ignorant

English

Etymology

un- +? lettered

Adjective

unlettered (not comparable)

1. not instructed in letters; not well educated; unable to read
2. not expressed in or marked with letters

Derived terms

• unletteredness

Translations