About The Word Literal

Bay Area Crosswords

Learn about the word Literal to help solve your crossword puzzle. Discover Literal definitions and meaning, origins, synonyms, related terms and more at the free Crossword Dictionary.

Literal

Literal Meaning & Definition
Literal Definition And Meaning

What's The Definition Of Literal?

[n] a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind
[adj] without interpretation or embellishment; "a literal translation of the scene before him"
[adj] (of a translation) corresponding word for word with the original; "literal translation of the article"; "an awkward word-for-word translation"
[adj] limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text; "a literal translation"
[adj] of the clearest kind; usually used for emphasis; "it's the literal truth"; "a matter of investment, pure and simple"
[adj] lacking stylistic embellishment; "a literal description"; "wrote good but plain prose"; "a plain unadorned account of the coronation"; "a forthright unembellished style"
[adj] being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something; "her actual motive"; "a literal solitude like a desert"- G.K.Chesterton; "a genuine dilemma"

Synonyms | Synonyms for Literal: actual | denotative | erratum | exact | explicit | genuine | literal error | misprint | plain | pure and simple | real | true | typo | typographical error | unembellished | word-for-word

Related Terms | Find terms related to Literal: abecedarian | accepted | allographic | alphabetic | approved | arid | authentic | authoritative | barren | basic | bona fide | boring | candid | canonical | capital | card-carrying | Christian | colorless | conventional | correct | customary | denotative | dictionary | dinkum | down-to-earth | dry | dull | earthbound | essential | etymological | evangelical | exact | faithful | firm | following the letter | genuine | good | graphemic | honest | honest-to-God | humdrum | ideographic | inartificial | infecund | infertile | lawful | legitimate | lettered | lexical | lexigraphic | lifelike | literatim | logogrammatic | logographic | lower-case | majuscule | matter-of-fact | minuscular | minuscule | mundane | natural | naturalistic | objective | of the faith | original | orthodox | orthodoxical | pictographic | precise | proper | prosaic | prosing | prosy | pure | real | realistic | received | right | rightful | scriptural | semantic | simon-pure | simple | simplistic | sincere | sound | staid | standard | sterling | stolid | strict | stuffy | sure-enough | tedious | textual | traditional | traditionalistic | transliterated | true | true to life | true to nature | true to reality | true-blue | unadulterated | unaffected | unassumed | unassuming | unbiased | uncial | uncolored | uncomplicated | unconcocted | uncopied | uncounterfeited | undisguised | undisguising | undistorted | unembellished | unexaggerated | unfabricated | unfanciful | unfeigned | unfeigning | unfictitious | unflattering | unideal | unimaginative | unimagined | unimitated | uninspired | uninvented | uninventive | unoriginal | unpoetic | unprejudiced | unpretended | unpretending | unqualified | unromantic | unromanticized | unsimulated | unspecious | unsynthetic | unvarnished | upper-case | verbal | verbatim | veridical | verisimilar | word-for-word

See Also | error | mistake | unrhetorical

Literal In Webster's Dictionary

\Lit"er*al\, a. [F. lit['e]ral, litt['e]ral, L. litteralis, literalis, fr. littera, litera, a letter. See {Letter}.] 1. 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. --Tyndale. 2. Following the letter or exact words; not free. A middle course between the rigor of literal translations and the liberty of paraphrasts. --Hooker. 3. Consisting of, or expressed by, letters. The literal notation of numbers was known to Europeans before the ciphers. --Johnson. 4. Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of fast; -- applied to persons. {Literal contract} (Law), contract of which the whole evidence is given in writing. --Bouvier. {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.
\Lit"er*al\, n. Literal meaning. [Obs.] --Sir T. Browne.

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