LITERAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.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'

Click any word on the page to get its definition

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Text size: A A

Share |

"Literal" Quotes from Famous Books

... head in literal protest at a doubt. "Why that's exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has been just as if you took a particular interest." She only looked at him by way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite aware, that while ...

— In the Cage • Henry James

Read full book for free!

... cranium from the effects of the blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Under the excitement of ineffable and horrid joy, they whip him round the circle, that he may expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation of slow roasting. During this abhorrent process, the children fill the circle in convulsions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these cases; ...

— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

Read full book for free!

... there are flower-forms which are naturally geometric, which have conventionalised themselves. Many of the intricate Moorish frets and Indian carvings are literal translations of flower-forms geometrically repeated, and here they lend themselves so perfectly to the decoration of even exterior walls that the fretted arches of some Eastern buildings seem almost to have grown of themselves, ...

— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler

Read full book for free!

... here—and here—and here." With such a man, she felt, the direct and obvious appeal of Rose Stribling would be victorious. He could discern pink and white and blue and gold; but the indeterminate shades, the subtleties and mysteries of charm were enigmatical to him. His emotions would be as literal as his convictions or his oratory. Yet there must be some faculty in him which did not appear on the surface, some primitive grasp of realities in his understanding of men. Why should the influence of this sanguine, loud-talking demagogue, ...

— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

Read full book for free!

... stored in a house sheltered from the east wind which dries up the wood extremely, and a careful list should be kept of it. Wood for rafters is the better for being put into a tank and left there for four or five months. I may explain that stone posts (we use the literal translation from the Kanarese) are blocks of from 8 to 12 feet in length, which are raised by fire by an ingenious process. The natives first light fires on the slab of sheet rock they desire to operate ...

— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

Read full book for free!

More quotes...