Literary vs. Literal

Relating to literature.

Example: ‘literary fame’; ‘a literary history’; ‘literary conversation’;

Relating to writers, or the profession of literature.

Example: ‘a literary man’;

Knowledgeable of literature or writing.

Appropriate to literature rather than everyday writing.

Bookish.

Of or pertaining to letters or literature; pertaining to learning or learned men; as, literary fame; a literary history; literary conversation.

Example: ‘He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit.’;

Versed in, or acquainted with, literature; occupied with literature as a profession; connected with literature or with men of letters; as, a literary man.

Example: ‘In the literary as well as fashionable world.’;

of or relating to or characteristic of literature;

Example: ‘literary criticism’;

knowledgeable about literature;

Example: ‘a literary style’;

appropriate to literature rather than everyday speech or writing;

Example: ‘when trying to impress someone she spoke in an affected literary style’;

concerning the writing, study, or content of literature, especially of the kind valued for quality of form

Example: ‘the great literary works of the nineteenth century’;

concerned with literature as a profession

Example: ‘the newspaper's literary editor’;

(of language) associated with literary works or other formal writing; having a marked style intended to create a particular emotional effect

Example: ‘the script was too literary’;

Exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; according to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical.

Example: ‘The literal translation is “hands full of bananas” but it means empty-handed.’;

Following the letter or exact words; not free; not taking liberties.

Example: ‘A literal reading of the law would prohibit it, but that is clearly not the intent.’;

(uncommon) Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.

Example: ‘a literal equation’;

(of a person) Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of-fact.

(proscribed) Used non-literally as an intensifier; see literally for usage notes.

Example: ‘Telemarketers are the literal worst.’;

A misprint (or occasionally a scribal error) that affects a letter.

(programming) A value, as opposed to an identifier, written into the source code of a computer program.

(logic) A propositional variable or the negation of a propositional variable. Wp

According to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical; as, the literal meaning of a phrase.

Example: ‘It hath but one simple literal sense whose light the owls can not abide.’;

Following the letter or exact words; not free.

Example: ‘A middle course between the rigor of literal translations and the liberty of paraphrasts.’;

Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.

Example: ‘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 meaning.

a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind

being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something;

Example: ‘her actual motive’; ‘a literal solitude like a desert’; ‘a genuine dilemma’;

without interpretation or embellishment;

Example: ‘a literal translation of the scene before him’;

limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text;

Example: ‘a literal translation’;

lacking stylistic embellishment;

Example: ‘a literal description’; ‘wrote good but plain prose’; ‘a plain unadorned account of the coronation’; ‘a forthright unembellished style’;

of the clearest kind; usually used for emphasis;

Example: ‘it's the literal truth’; ‘a matter of investment, pure and simple’;

(of a translation) corresponding word for word with the original;

Example: ‘literal translation of the article’; ‘an awkward word-for-word translation’;