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Omitting a letter; composed of words not having a certain letter or letters; as, lipogrammatic writings.

Pronounced without any jar or harshness; smooth; as, l and r are liquid letters.

To pronounce the sibilant letter s imperfectly; to give s and z the sound of th; -- a defect common among children.

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 .

That which accords with the letter; a mode of interpreting literally; adherence to the letter.

One who adheres to the letter or exact word; an interpreter according to the letter.

Of or pertaining to letters or literature; pertaining to learning or learned men; as, literary fame; a literary history; literary conversation. He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit. Johnson.

Instructed in learning, science, or literature; learned; lettered. The literate now chose their emperor, as the military chose theirs. Landor.

Letter for letter.

The act or process of representing by letters.

One who teaches the letters or elements of knowledge; a petty schoolmaster. Burke.

Learning; acquaintance with letters or books.

A word letter; a phonogram, that, for the sake of brevity, represents a word; as, |, i. e., t, for it. Cf. Grammalogue.

riddle in which it is required to discover a chosen word from various combinations of its letters, or of some of its letters, which form other words; -- thus, to discover the chosen word chatter form cat, hat, rat, hate, rate, etc. B. Jonson.

A single type, containing two or more letters; as, æ, Æ, fi, fl, ffl, etc. ; -- called also ligature.

Pertaining to, or kept in, the lower case; -- used to denote the small letters, in distinction from capitals and small capitals. See the Note under 1st Case, n., 3.

M, the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet, is a vocal consonant, and from the manner of its formation, is called the labio- nasal consonant. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 178-180, 242.

pecially an elderly or a married lady; -- much used in the address, at the beginning of a letter, to a woman. The corresponding word in addressing a man is Sir.

The bag or bags with the letters, papers, papers, or other matter contained therein, conveyed under public authority from one post office to another; the whole system of appliances used by government in the conveyance and delivery of mail matter. There is a mail come in to-day, with letters dated Hague. Tatler.…

Capital letters, as found in manuscripts of the sixth century and earlier.