literal
pronunciation
How to pronounce literal in British English:
UK [ˈlɪtərəl]
How to pronounce literal in American English:
US [ˈlɪtərəl]
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- Noun:
- a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind
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- Adjective:
- being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something
- without interpretation or embellishment
- limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text
- lacking stylistic embellishment
- of the clearest kind; usually used for emphasis
- (of a translation) corresponding word for word with the original
Word Origin
- literal (adj.)
- late 14c., "taking words in their natural meaning" (originally in reference to Scripture and opposed to mystical or allegorical), from Old French literal and directly from Late Latin literalis/litteralis "of or belonging to letters or writing," from Latin litera/littera "letter, alphabetic sign; literature, books" (see letter (n.1)). Meaning "of or pertaining to alphabetic letters" is from late 15c. Sense of "verbally exact" is attested from 1590s, as is application to the primary sense of a word or passage. Literal-minded is attested from 1791.
Example
- 1. We have also exploited a short-hand for the function literal .
- 2. You don 't have to put people down a literal path .
- 3. In this case , we passed in the following function literal .
- 4. There may be more literal truth to the metaphor than he intended .
- 5. But until 1961 , the term had a more literal meaning in the city-state .