Search the Dictionary

Little. [Obs.] Chaucer.

A measure of capacity in the metric system, being a cubic decimeter, equal to 61.022 cubic inches, or 2.113 American pints, or 1.76 English pints.

State of being literate.

cording 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.

The state or quality of being literal. Sir T. Browne.

The act of literalizing; reduction to a literal meaning.

To make literal; to interpret or put in practice according to the strict meaning of the words; -- opposed to spiritualize; as, to literalize Scripture.

A literalist.

primary and natural import of words; not figuratively; as, a man and his wife can not be literally one flesh.

The quality or state of being literal; literal import.

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.

Learned or literary men. See Literatus. Shakespearean commentators, and other literati. Craik.

Letter for letter.

The act or process of representing by letters.

A person devoted to the study of literary trifles, esp. trifles belonging to the literature of a former age. That class of subjects which are interesting to the regular literator or black-letter " bibliomane," simply because they have once been interesting. De Quincey.

The collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of Bib…

A learned man; a man acquainted with literature; -- chiefly used in the plural. Now we are to consider that our bright ideal of a literatus may chance to be maimed. De Quincey.