Poorly represent ignorant character (10)
I believe the answer is:
illiterate
'ignorant character' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'poorly represent' is the wordplay.
'poorly' becomes 'ill' (synonyms).
'represent' becomes 'iterate' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ill'+'iterate'='ILLITERATE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for illiterate that I've seen before include "dunce" , "Ignorant" , "lacking in education" , "Wordless" , "non-reader" .)