literalityn.

1643 J. Goodwin Quaere Church-covenant 2 Those injunctions..impose no such literality upon the Saints in these dayes as they did, when they were written.

1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica i. iii. 9 Not attaining the deuteroscopy, and second intention of the words, they..are not sometime perswaded by fire beyond their literalities . View more context for this quotation

1650 Bp. J. Hall Revelation Unrevealed xv. 127 How wild a Paradoxe it is to tie those frequent and large promises of the Prophets..to a carnall literality of sense.

1703 W. Freke Divine Gram. ii. iv. 123 The Bounds of the Allegory and the Bounds of the Literality in this case.

1729 True & Anc. Hereditary Right xi. 50 We have the same Revelation of the Will of God, which is acknowledged in the bare litterality by the Papists themselves, to justify us therein.

1818 C. Lamb Female Orators in Wks. 635 One her coarse sense by metaphors expounds And one in literalities abounds.

1844 Foreign Q. Rev. 33 460 It is easy..to sneer at literality;..literality is after all the first merit of translation.

1867 H. Macmillan Bible Teachings xv. 293 Those to whom the sea has proved cruel, may..rejoice to accept the announcement in all its literality, that in heaven there shall be no more sea.

1918 Atlantic Monthly Sept. 384/1 Nothing can excuse a willing obscuration of possible literalities by figures of speech.

2000 Speculum 75 159 Tracing medieval quarrels over translatability and literality, Kelly tends to see conflicting notions of the translator's pastoral responsibility.

1656 T. Blount Glossographia Literality, learning, knowledge of letters.