Literacy

How to spell literacy

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce literacy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does literacy mean?

1. nounThe ability to read and write.
2. nounCompetence or knowledge in a particular subject or area.

Literacy in a sentence

• The charity runs evening classes to improve adult literacy in the area.

• Financial literacy helps employees plan their pensions sensibly.

• Basic literacy is tested before pupils move up to the next year.

• The course aims to build digital literacy among older staff.

Where does literacy come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin litera (also spelled littera), which meant a single letter of the alphabet, and in the plural meant writing, records, or scholarship. The related adjective literatus described a person who was lettered or learned, and from it English already had the word 'literate' by the 1400s. 'Literacy' itself is a much later formation, coined in English in the late nineteenth century by adding the noun suffix -acy to give an abstract name to the state of being literate. It was created largely as the natural opposite of 'illiteracy', which had appeared a little earlier as a concern of educators and census takers. The same Latin litera sits inside the everyday words 'letter', 'literal', and 'literature', and remembering that family helps explain the single t and the e after the t, since the awkward part for spellers is the unstressed middle vowel and the -acy ending.

How the word is built

• liter- (from Latin litera: letter)
• -acy (noun suffix denoting a quality or state)