'Literal' definitions:
Definition of 'literal'
(from WordNet)
adjective
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" [syn: actual, genuine, literal, real]
adjective
Without interpretation or embellishment; "a literal depiction of the scene before him"
adjective
Limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text; "a literal translation" [ant: figurative, nonliteral]
adjective
Avoiding embellishment or exaggeration (used for emphasis); "it's the literal truth"
noun
A mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind [syn: misprint, erratum, typographical error, typo, literal error, literal]
Definition of 'Literal'
From: GCIDE
- Literal \Lit"er*al\, n. Literal meaning. [Obs.] --Sir T. Browne. [1913 Webster]
Definition of 'Literal'
From: GCIDE
- Literal \Lit"er*al\ (l[i^]t"[~e]r*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. [1913 Webster]
- It hath but one simple literal sense whose light the owls can not abide. --Tyndale. [1913 Webster]
- 2. Following the letter or exact words; not free. [1913 Webster]
- A middle course between the rigor of literal translations and the liberty of paraphrasts. --Hooker. [1913 Webster]
- 3. Consisting of, or expressed by, letters. [1913 Webster]
- The literal notation of numbers was known to Europeans before the ciphers. --Johnson. [1913 Webster]
- 4. Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of-fact; -- applied to persons. [1913 Webster]
- Literal contract (Law), a 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. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'literal'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- 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