LITERAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Literal

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/lˈɪtərəl/ Listen

adjective

Literal adj.

According to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical; as, the literal meaning of a phrase. "It hath but one simple literal sense whose light the owls can not abide."

Following the letter or exact words; not free. "A middle course between the rigor of literal translations and the liberty of paraphrasts."

Consisting of, or expressed by, letters. "The literal notation of numbers was known to Europeans before the ciphers."

Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of-fact; applied to persons.

Literal contract (Law), a contract of which the whole evidence is given in writing.

Literal equation (Math.), an equation in which known quantities are expressed either wholly or in part by means of letters; distinguished from a numerical equation.

noun

Literal n. Literal meaning. (Obs.)

See images of 'Literal'

Etymology of 'Literal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Literal" Quotes from Famous Books

... still more striking beauty about the saying, if we give the full literal meaning to the word 'strength.' It is used by our translators, I suppose, in a somewhat archaic and peculiar signification, namely, that of a stronghold. At all events the Hebrew means a fortress, a place where men may live safe and secure; and if we take that ...

— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... finished the chapter, reading it aloud. And here I quote, from the published Journal of the late Chief Justice, an entry, written immediately after the meeting, and bearing unmistakable evidence that it is almost a literal ...

— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... thus leaves the way open to say that life must have originated by just such a literal creation as is recorded in the first ...

— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant

... planter gave no more heed to the pedigree of his slaves than he did to that of his cattle; all alike were bought and sold in the open market, and neither one nor the other had any rights or privileges apart from the will of their owners. The cabin of the slave family was, in a very literal sense, what its name implied—a cabin and nothing more. The household was not supposed to need more than one room; the furniture was, of course, as rude as the hovel itself, and, though the apartment would be well ventilated, glass windows were not considered necessary. A pallet on the ...

— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike

... "Ovidius utroque lascivior" and he could not have given a terser or more comprehensive criticism. Of all Latin poets, not excepting even Plautus, Ovid possesses in the highest degree the gift of facility. His words probably express the literal truth, when he says— ...

— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

More quotes...