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Consisting of one letter only; as, a uniliteral word or sign.

Literally, a befalling; an event that takes place without one's foresight or expectation; an undesigned, sudden, and unexpected event; chance; contingency; often, an undesigned and unforeseen occurrence of an afflictive or unfortunate character; a casualty; a mishap; as, to die by an accident. Of moving accidents by fl…

cal; to understand in an allegorical sense; as, when a passage in a writer may understood literally or figuratively, he who gives it a figurative sense is said to allegorize it.

Literal. [Obs.] "Alphabetical servility." Milton.

Any stock of missiles, literal or figurative. Ammunition bread, shoes, etc., such as are contracted for by government, and supplied to the soldiers. [Eng.]

Literally, the letters of a word read backwards, but in its usual wider sense, the change or one word or phrase into another by the transposition of its letters. Thus Galenus becomes angelus; William Noy (attorney-general to Charles I., and a laborious man) may be turned into I moyl in law.

Literally: One sent forth; a messenger. Specifically: One of the twelve disciples of Christ, specially chosen as his companions and witnesses, and sent forth to preach the gospel. He called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles. Luke vi. 13.

The act of applying or laying on, in a literal sense; as, the application of emollients to a diseased limb.

Heat, in a literal sense; as, the ardor of the sun's rays.

Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb. Those arduous pats they trod. Pope.

n arm in armwe went along." Tennyson. -- To keep at arm's length, to keep at a distance (literally or figuratively); not to allow to come into close contact or familiar intercourse. -- To work at arm's length, to work disadvantageously.

A sprinkling, as with water or dust, in a literal sense. Behold an immersion, not and aspersion. Jer. Taylor.

Out of the right, either in a literal or in a figurative sense; wandering; as, to lead one astray. Ye were as sheep going astray. 1 Pet. ii. 25.

Destitute of ornament; unadorned; bare; literal. In the preface to his own bald translation. Dryden.

To cover with dung, as for manuring; to bedaub or defile, literally or figuratively. Bp. Hall.

Literally: To appear or seem (well, ill, best, etc.) for (one) to do or to have. Hence: To be fit, suitable, or proper for, or worthy of; to become; to befit. A duty well beseeming the preachers. Clarendon. What form of speech or behavior beseemeth us, in our prayers to God Hocker.

To cause sharp pain, or smarting, to; to hurt or injure, in a literal or a figurative sense; as, pepper bites the mouth. "Frosts do bite the meads." Shak.

The quality or state of being bitter, sharp, or acrid, in either a literal or figurative sense; implacableness; resentfulness; severity; keenness of reproach or sarcasm; deep distress, grief, or vexation of mind. The lip that curls with bitterness. Percival. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Job vii. 11.…

In a less literal sense: Enveloped or shrouded in darkness; very dark or gloomy; as, a black night; the heavens black with clouds. I spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud. Shak.

To make blind, literally or figuratively; to dazzle; to deceive. [Obs.] Chaucer.