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单词 literal
释义

Definition of literal in English:

literal

adjective ˈlɪt(ə)r(ə)l
  • 1Taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or exaggeration.

    dreadful in its literal sense, full of dread
    Example sentencesExamples
    • In the most literal sense of the word, it won't be a pretty sight.
    • His figures are neither idealised nor recognisable; they tell no literal story, yet they leave indelible impressions on the viewer.
    • Carter's father has been captured on a moon transformed into a literal hell.
    • If it collapses, it may be in the literal sense rather than the economic.
    • Lighting of lamps has the meaning of eliminating the darkness in the literal sense, and metaphorically it means to overcome and gain the knowledge of Enlightenment.
    • Ideas about the soul were linked to notions of resurrection of the body, and from the third century to the late Middle Ages many theologians emphasized the full and literal resurrection of the body after death.
    • The main reason is the bricks-and-mortar approach, in the metaphorical and literal senses.
    • There's a conflation of two senses of the word ‘criminal’: the literal sense and the metaphorical.
    • Rarely has a film gathered such visual poetry from the literal and figurative ashes of the dead forms it has left behind.
    • His is a cinema of whimsy in the most literal sense of the word, and from his impulsive choices ultimately emerges the playfulness the word typically connotes.
    • Well, he most likely doesn't mean that in a literal sense.
    • Such representations of it are less than attentive to the literal force field of antagonisms it creates.
    • Appending ‘frankly’ to almost any remark made in public turns that remark into a literal lie in two senses.
    • That is, they are currently being produced to sell to outsiders, whether or not these are tourists in the literal sense.
    • When hearing this, remember not to take it so seriously that you ask the exact time, because the expression does not conform to its literal meaning.
    • Hence, we should take the description of the center of gravity in a metaphorical rather than a literal sense.
    • So finally, one blustery weekend last winter, he got down on literal and proverbial bended knee and offered up a very impressive diamond.
    • The term ‘flat,’ in its central, literal meaning, is an absolute term.
    • When we got there, we realised that the haunted house was a literal house in a residential neighborhood.
    • It would make his move towards a criticism of absolute time both figurative and literal.
    1. 1.1 Free from exaggeration or distortion.
      you shouldn't take this as a literal record of events
      Example sentencesExamples
      • The style of these reports is usually literal providing an extensive and detailed documentation of events in order to more effectively challenge prior state silence.
      • Coming from a footballer in his prime, however, with two small children and a third on the way, the expression undergoes a vigorously literal restoration.
      • These are new recordings, and not literal duplications of what can be heard on the original film soundtracks.
      • Given its propensity for recording literal truth, the camera seems at odds with the interpretive truth of the art on the walls.
      • A family tree book is a literal expression of this attitude: With a definite record in the book, people can see that they are closely related to a group.
      • In this article it is the ‘moral sensibility’ that is of interest, and we consider the paintings not as literal records of historical or social experience but as documents of beliefs.
      • As I understand it, this isn't allegory, but literal truth, a prophecy that will someday be realised.
      • If some MPs feel there is no sense in what I say, then they only have to check the Hansard, which is supposed to be a literal record of what is said in Parliament.
      • Speech conveys more than its literal meaning, and its undertones and nuances must be protected.
      • Rather than presenting a literal succession of past events, these texts tell stories of origins as a way of communicating truths about the present.
      • The nineteenth is the first century for which we have literal visual narrative records, whether of a war, a city, a statesman, a family, or a pet.
      • But it has always been hard for anyone with any religious doubt to take the fantastic series of events described as literal truth.
      • Vocals feature more frequently, too, though more for their harmonic qualities and instrumental timbre than for any literal meanings they might convey.
      • This abuse is perhaps only the most literal expression of the punishment our culture imposes on bodies that dare to transgress from the socially prescribed norms.
      • If anything they look like African animist masks that convey the idea of an animal more than its literal shape.
      • The apparent discrepancy between divergence ages implied by genetic calibration techniques and a literal interpretation of the fossil record is discussed.
      • The postcard simply provides a literal record of a time and place.
      Synonyms
      strict, factual, plain, simple, bare, exact, straightforward, stark
      unvarnished, unexaggerated, unembellished, undistorted, unadulterated
      objective, narrow, correct, true, truthful, faithful, accurate, genuine, authentic, veritable, veracious, gospel
    2. 1.2informal Absolute (used to emphasize that a strong expression is deliberately chosen to convey one's feelings)
      fifteen years of literal hell
      Example sentencesExamples
      • Anyway, high school was a literal hell and JC and I both hated it.
      • He made my life a literal Hell, and he hurt us in more ways than just physical.
      • That world is a literal living Hell, so to survive, one must be tough!
      • I didn't want to tell her that her son was making my life a literal hell.
      • It was a literal hell for me, and I'm glad that I have recovered.
      • The teleplay begins as a simulated documentary about the impact of a nuclear strike on Sheffield, but ends up as a coolly Bergmanesque vision of a literal hell on earth.
      • Predictably, television programs - cable feasts on these events - has produced literal carnivals of talking heads.
  • 2(of a translation) representing the exact words of the original text.

    a literal translation from the Spanish
    Example sentencesExamples
    • Now here's a literal translation of Der Spiegel's text.
    • This is not a word-to-word translation, for the Urdu language is such that a literal translation cannot do justice to the original.
    • I tried a literal translation, but that sounds absurd.
    • It both makes an exact and almost literal translation of the original and infuses that translation with a sense of beauty and ceremony.
    • The English notes on the cover need some editing, though, because the spelling errors and the literal translations would be a bit embarrassing if this album were put on record shelves abroad.
    • He decided to undertake not only the literal translation of the text itself, but also three types of interpretation.
    • I always thought this meant ‘from one day to the next’, which is a literal translation.
    • In its most literal translation, the Sanskrit word sangam can mean ‘the meeting point of three rivers’.
    • This, he claimed, is a literal translation of the Arabic word order.
    • This is a literal translation; the term does not necessarily refer to an old woman, but rather to the wisest member of a family, regardless of gender.
    • Most of the sites warn that the automatic translations are somewhat literal, but add that they should be good enough for the person receiving them to understand.
    • However, its literal translation - ‘the seeking of times lost’ - strikes more of a chord with me.
    • It's true not only across languages, where a literal translation of idiom may result in nonsense, but also across art forms.
    • They sometimes choose to mix up a literal translation of some such texts with what are Islamic legal provisions in the true sense of that terminology.
    • I told him the literal translation, but knew he would find it too wordy compared to the English phrase, and this was evident in his botched attempt to say it himself.
    • This disease, known popularly as ‘rat fever’, which is the literal translation of its name in Malayalam, has been claiming many lives.
    • A more literal translation would be ‘conductor of war’ or ‘driver of war’.
    • You can even skip this literal translation if you want, or read it second.
    • Johnson notes that this addition contains an anagram, extant in the Russian text, which would be missing in a literal translation.
    • That happens to be the literal translation of the word ‘Zen.’
    Synonyms
    word-for-word, verbatim, line-for-line, letter-for-letter
    exact, precise, faithful, close, strict, to the letter, undeviating, true, accurate
    rare literatim
    1. 2.1 (of a visual representation) exactly copied; realistic as opposed to abstract or impressionistic.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • For a more literal expression of the separation of the exhibition function from the office function go east to White Cube in Hoxton Square.
      • I am not suggesting that we find a literal representation of the last fifteen years in the crime series on television.
      • An experienced professional photographer can capture the feeling of a space, providing more than simply a literal representation.
      • He shames all the abstract artists, if you ask me; he finds the abstract in the literal, which is much more difficult.
      • This imagery can best be described as a concrete or literal form of representation, at least in comparison to the more abstract one found within Protestant religious practice.
      • It isn't supposed to be literal: it's a work of insinuation and abstraction, a story about the illusion of home told through the eyes of a man whose whole life has been based on illusion.
      • The painting seems to make the problems of an attempted literal, visual representation even more evident.
      • It basically misrepresents the film as a literal representation of its title.
      • We have become uncomfortable with the idea of literal representation when we make monuments.
      • I introduced the idea of perspective through its literal use.
      • ‘We wanted a garden that felt like those places but that wasn't a literal copy of any of them,’ says Jeff.
      • All of that is ultimately in pursuit of not the literal representation of a sound, but its essence.
      • The lack of literal connection between visual and auditory sources is not confusing.
      • If you want the image that you record to be as close to a literal representation of the scene as technology permits, then of course #1 above is the only answer.
      • Representation wasn't a literal matter: after all, few French people looked like the figure of liberty, Marianne, with her robes and cap.
      • While some of the dances stressed literal dramatizations, others took a more abstract path.
      • Her work is both abstract and literal using acrylic and oil on wood and canvas.
  • 3(of a person or performance) lacking imagination; prosaic.

    his interpretation was rather too literal
    Example sentencesExamples
    • The movie brilliantly brings out the A-student egotism of this unrelenting, literal-minded young woman.
    • It's just that the characters themselves are flattened by this implacably literal-minded manipulation.
    • This mythic quality is what he admired in the work, and yet his literal-minded insistence on shining a spotlight into every crevice makes the whole thing seem completely banal.
    • Indeed, scholars generally analyzed the documentary qualities of western art-a rather literal-minded approach that downplayed aesthetic considerations to concentrate on the issue of firsthand observation.
    • What is, on paper, a primarily interior experience, stumbles on film with a clunky visual style that remains merely literal instead of challengingly literary.
    • If you'd prefer to remain optimistic about this movie's potential to rise above literal-minded conformity to the source material, then I suggest you don't watch the trailer.
    • And I detect a troubling literal-minded Phariseeism here, and will respond in kind.
    • The literal-minded insistence that all government rhetoric be entirely scrupulous strikes me, in view of the above, as weird.
    • Burt's dry wit has, however, occasionally got him into hot water, especially among more literal-minded listeners.
    • For one thing, the protagonist is rather literal-minded; how many homes did she really have to visit before figuring out that death was universal?
    • So it would be an error to be too strict or literal-minded about application of the science fiction label.
    • At first sight this may seem a welcome antidote to the more literal-minded readings of earlier scholarship that tended to regard every seated man with a book roll in his hand as a professional philosopher.
    • She was relatively literal-minded, although a bit dreamy.
    • Margie and I stared, unsure whether she had just said something breathtakingly incisive or mind-numbingly literal-minded.
    • Tonight it's given a spectacularly literal-minded and heterosexual interpretation and, for some reason, a cockney accent.
    • The president was being awfully literal-minded.
    • It hasn't helped that our leaders are mostly literal-minded wonks.
    • First let me get the polemical point out of the way: People who complain about superhero characters' vigilantism are being too literal-minded and missing the point.
    • Let's say you're literal-minded enough to look for the meaning in everything, that you check the placards next to abstract paintings and you couldn't buy Ulysses without an authoritative guide to explain the references.
    • To the poet, the scientist seems unimaginative and literal-minded - with his head buried in the ground of facts, incapable of comprehending the larger significance of what he does.
    • But the bulk of them are so idiotic, so literal-minded, so surreal that they would barely merit mention if they were not part of a concerted attempt to smear him.
    Synonyms
    literal-minded, down-to-earth, factual, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense, unsentimental, level-headed, hard-headed
    prosaic, unimaginative, colourless, pedestrian, tedious, boring, dull, humdrum, uninspired, uninspiring, prosy
  • 4Of, in, or expressed by a letter or the letters of the alphabet.

    literal mnemonics
    Example sentencesExamples
    • The ideas come through although some, as over the weekend, may end up being more visual than literal now.
    • ‘You are a literal country, not a visual country,’ he says.
noun ˈlɪt(ə)r(ə)l
British Printing
  • A misprint of a letter.

    Example sentencesExamples
    • Extensive mistakes may hardly count (as when the entire first edition was misprinted in italics), but literals can be crucial in a conflicted society which fetishes minor differences.
    • In the end of course, there I was giving out about spelling and the piece itself was full of literals.
    • Apart from the distressing number of literals and homophones which infest my proof copy, my main criticism is that she never quite succeeds in bringing her quicksilver subject into full view.
    Synonyms
    misprint, error, mistake, slip, slip of the pen, printing/typographical/typesetting/keyboarding/keying/typing error, corrigendum, erratum
    informal typo, howler

Derivatives

  • literality

  • noun lɪt(ə)ˈralɪti
    • Therefore, in Rembrandt's reasoning, a gardener was required and he, in his humble literality, painted Jesus as a gardener, with a spade in hand and a pruning knife in his belt.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • For the time being, that literality faces a major scientific challenge.
      • The fundamental theorem of calculus becomes almost obvious once the nonstandard terminology is invoked and interpreted in its full literality.
      • Close-cropping and the primacy of grisaille - composed of complex black, luminous gray and iridescent white - keep the paintings away from the literality of seascape and any hint of tonal lyricism.
      • In so doing, he invents another type of representation which robs, disembodies, and finally perhaps brings the body back to its literality.
  • literalize

  • verb ˈlɪt(ə)r(ə)lʌɪz
    [with object]
    • Interpret or represent literally.

      the play literalizes the notion of marriage as a prison
      Example sentencesExamples
      • The use of olive oil is a personal reference to her grandmother describing her as having ‘olive’ skin, but more importantly, the fluid quality of the oil literalizes the idea of mutable identity.
      • If you want to literalize it, it's a brush-off to a subpar lover.
      • For the first time in history the myth was literalized and historicized and localized in a person who was believed gradually - not originally - to be a historical figure.
  • literalness

  • noun ˈlɪt(ə)r(ə)lnəs
    • Her early pieces have a literalness that she later discarded in favour of a more open-ended sense of evocation.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • It's literalness is so easily consumed that there is no choice but for the work to be ephemeral and meaningless.
      • As to literalness, the general rule here is to take passages which are meant literally literally and to take passages which are not meant literally unliterally.
      • Indeed, many current practitioners resist the term outright, thinking that it leads to preaching, agitprop, or telling readers what to do; they equate it with literalness, or a paucity of expression.
      • But it should only be attempted if the critic first honors the poem's literalness, because the poem's cold power is in its literalness.

Origin

Late Middle English: from Old French, or from late Latin litteralis, from Latin littera (see letter).

  • letter from Middle English:

    English adopted letter from Old French in the 13th century. Its ultimate source is Latin lit(t)era, from which literal (Late Middle English), literature (Late Middle English), and alliteration (early 17th century) also derive—the Latin word meant ‘written communication or message’ as well as ‘letter of the alphabet’, and both senses came over into English. The phrase to the letter ‘to the last detail’ has a parallel in French au pied de la lettre, which people of a literary bent have also used in English. See also alphabet

Rhymes

littoral, presbyteral
 
 

Definition of literal in US English:

literal

adjective
  • 1Taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.

    dreadful in its literal sense, full of dread
    Example sentencesExamples
    • There's a conflation of two senses of the word ‘criminal’: the literal sense and the metaphorical.
    • The main reason is the bricks-and-mortar approach, in the metaphorical and literal senses.
    • If it collapses, it may be in the literal sense rather than the economic.
    • When we got there, we realised that the haunted house was a literal house in a residential neighborhood.
    • In the most literal sense of the word, it won't be a pretty sight.
    • Lighting of lamps has the meaning of eliminating the darkness in the literal sense, and metaphorically it means to overcome and gain the knowledge of Enlightenment.
    • Appending ‘frankly’ to almost any remark made in public turns that remark into a literal lie in two senses.
    • Rarely has a film gathered such visual poetry from the literal and figurative ashes of the dead forms it has left behind.
    • When hearing this, remember not to take it so seriously that you ask the exact time, because the expression does not conform to its literal meaning.
    • Hence, we should take the description of the center of gravity in a metaphorical rather than a literal sense.
    • That is, they are currently being produced to sell to outsiders, whether or not these are tourists in the literal sense.
    • The term ‘flat,’ in its central, literal meaning, is an absolute term.
    • So finally, one blustery weekend last winter, he got down on literal and proverbial bended knee and offered up a very impressive diamond.
    • It would make his move towards a criticism of absolute time both figurative and literal.
    • Carter's father has been captured on a moon transformed into a literal hell.
    • Such representations of it are less than attentive to the literal force field of antagonisms it creates.
    • His figures are neither idealised nor recognisable; they tell no literal story, yet they leave indelible impressions on the viewer.
    • Well, he most likely doesn't mean that in a literal sense.
    • His is a cinema of whimsy in the most literal sense of the word, and from his impulsive choices ultimately emerges the playfulness the word typically connotes.
    • Ideas about the soul were linked to notions of resurrection of the body, and from the third century to the late Middle Ages many theologians emphasized the full and literal resurrection of the body after death.
    1. 1.1 Free from exaggeration or distortion.
      you shouldn't take this as a literal record of events
      Example sentencesExamples
      • These are new recordings, and not literal duplications of what can be heard on the original film soundtracks.
      • Rather than presenting a literal succession of past events, these texts tell stories of origins as a way of communicating truths about the present.
      • But it has always been hard for anyone with any religious doubt to take the fantastic series of events described as literal truth.
      • The postcard simply provides a literal record of a time and place.
      • A family tree book is a literal expression of this attitude: With a definite record in the book, people can see that they are closely related to a group.
      • Given its propensity for recording literal truth, the camera seems at odds with the interpretive truth of the art on the walls.
      • The apparent discrepancy between divergence ages implied by genetic calibration techniques and a literal interpretation of the fossil record is discussed.
      • Coming from a footballer in his prime, however, with two small children and a third on the way, the expression undergoes a vigorously literal restoration.
      • This abuse is perhaps only the most literal expression of the punishment our culture imposes on bodies that dare to transgress from the socially prescribed norms.
      • As I understand it, this isn't allegory, but literal truth, a prophecy that will someday be realised.
      • In this article it is the ‘moral sensibility’ that is of interest, and we consider the paintings not as literal records of historical or social experience but as documents of beliefs.
      • Vocals feature more frequently, too, though more for their harmonic qualities and instrumental timbre than for any literal meanings they might convey.
      • The style of these reports is usually literal providing an extensive and detailed documentation of events in order to more effectively challenge prior state silence.
      • If some MPs feel there is no sense in what I say, then they only have to check the Hansard, which is supposed to be a literal record of what is said in Parliament.
      • If anything they look like African animist masks that convey the idea of an animal more than its literal shape.
      • Speech conveys more than its literal meaning, and its undertones and nuances must be protected.
      • The nineteenth is the first century for which we have literal visual narrative records, whether of a war, a city, a statesman, a family, or a pet.
      Synonyms
      strict, factual, plain, simple, bare, exact, straightforward, stark
    2. 1.2informal Absolute (used to emphasize that a strong expression is deliberately chosen to convey one's feelings)
      fifteen years of literal hell
      Example sentencesExamples
      • Anyway, high school was a literal hell and JC and I both hated it.
      • That world is a literal living Hell, so to survive, one must be tough!
      • It was a literal hell for me, and I'm glad that I have recovered.
      • The teleplay begins as a simulated documentary about the impact of a nuclear strike on Sheffield, but ends up as a coolly Bergmanesque vision of a literal hell on earth.
      • He made my life a literal Hell, and he hurt us in more ways than just physical.
      • I didn't want to tell her that her son was making my life a literal hell.
      • Predictably, television programs - cable feasts on these events - has produced literal carnivals of talking heads.
  • 2(of a translation) representing the exact words of the original text.

    Example sentencesExamples
    • It's true not only across languages, where a literal translation of idiom may result in nonsense, but also across art forms.
    • I always thought this meant ‘from one day to the next’, which is a literal translation.
    • They sometimes choose to mix up a literal translation of some such texts with what are Islamic legal provisions in the true sense of that terminology.
    • You can even skip this literal translation if you want, or read it second.
    • Johnson notes that this addition contains an anagram, extant in the Russian text, which would be missing in a literal translation.
    • The English notes on the cover need some editing, though, because the spelling errors and the literal translations would be a bit embarrassing if this album were put on record shelves abroad.
    • Now here's a literal translation of Der Spiegel's text.
    • In its most literal translation, the Sanskrit word sangam can mean ‘the meeting point of three rivers’.
    • I told him the literal translation, but knew he would find it too wordy compared to the English phrase, and this was evident in his botched attempt to say it himself.
    • However, its literal translation - ‘the seeking of times lost’ - strikes more of a chord with me.
    • That happens to be the literal translation of the word ‘Zen.’
    • This is not a word-to-word translation, for the Urdu language is such that a literal translation cannot do justice to the original.
    • It both makes an exact and almost literal translation of the original and infuses that translation with a sense of beauty and ceremony.
    • Most of the sites warn that the automatic translations are somewhat literal, but add that they should be good enough for the person receiving them to understand.
    • He decided to undertake not only the literal translation of the text itself, but also three types of interpretation.
    • This is a literal translation; the term does not necessarily refer to an old woman, but rather to the wisest member of a family, regardless of gender.
    • This disease, known popularly as ‘rat fever’, which is the literal translation of its name in Malayalam, has been claiming many lives.
    • I tried a literal translation, but that sounds absurd.
    • This, he claimed, is a literal translation of the Arabic word order.
    • A more literal translation would be ‘conductor of war’ or ‘driver of war’.
    Synonyms
    word-for-word, verbatim, line-for-line, letter-for-letter
    1. 2.1 (of a visual representation) exactly copied; realistic as opposed to abstract or impressionistic.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • It basically misrepresents the film as a literal representation of its title.
      • It isn't supposed to be literal: it's a work of insinuation and abstraction, a story about the illusion of home told through the eyes of a man whose whole life has been based on illusion.
      • I introduced the idea of perspective through its literal use.
      • If you want the image that you record to be as close to a literal representation of the scene as technology permits, then of course #1 above is the only answer.
      • The lack of literal connection between visual and auditory sources is not confusing.
      • All of that is ultimately in pursuit of not the literal representation of a sound, but its essence.
      • He shames all the abstract artists, if you ask me; he finds the abstract in the literal, which is much more difficult.
      • Representation wasn't a literal matter: after all, few French people looked like the figure of liberty, Marianne, with her robes and cap.
      • We have become uncomfortable with the idea of literal representation when we make monuments.
      • ‘We wanted a garden that felt like those places but that wasn't a literal copy of any of them,’ says Jeff.
      • An experienced professional photographer can capture the feeling of a space, providing more than simply a literal representation.
      • This imagery can best be described as a concrete or literal form of representation, at least in comparison to the more abstract one found within Protestant religious practice.
      • I am not suggesting that we find a literal representation of the last fifteen years in the crime series on television.
      • For a more literal expression of the separation of the exhibition function from the office function go east to White Cube in Hoxton Square.
      • The painting seems to make the problems of an attempted literal, visual representation even more evident.
      • While some of the dances stressed literal dramatizations, others took a more abstract path.
      • Her work is both abstract and literal using acrylic and oil on wood and canvas.
  • 3(of a person or performance) lacking imagination; prosaic.

    Example sentencesExamples
    • It's just that the characters themselves are flattened by this implacably literal-minded manipulation.
    • And I detect a troubling literal-minded Phariseeism here, and will respond in kind.
    • At first sight this may seem a welcome antidote to the more literal-minded readings of earlier scholarship that tended to regard every seated man with a book roll in his hand as a professional philosopher.
    • The president was being awfully literal-minded.
    • This mythic quality is what he admired in the work, and yet his literal-minded insistence on shining a spotlight into every crevice makes the whole thing seem completely banal.
    • Indeed, scholars generally analyzed the documentary qualities of western art-a rather literal-minded approach that downplayed aesthetic considerations to concentrate on the issue of firsthand observation.
    • It hasn't helped that our leaders are mostly literal-minded wonks.
    • So it would be an error to be too strict or literal-minded about application of the science fiction label.
    • But the bulk of them are so idiotic, so literal-minded, so surreal that they would barely merit mention if they were not part of a concerted attempt to smear him.
    • Let's say you're literal-minded enough to look for the meaning in everything, that you check the placards next to abstract paintings and you couldn't buy Ulysses without an authoritative guide to explain the references.
    • The literal-minded insistence that all government rhetoric be entirely scrupulous strikes me, in view of the above, as weird.
    • She was relatively literal-minded, although a bit dreamy.
    • Margie and I stared, unsure whether she had just said something breathtakingly incisive or mind-numbingly literal-minded.
    • The movie brilliantly brings out the A-student egotism of this unrelenting, literal-minded young woman.
    • For one thing, the protagonist is rather literal-minded; how many homes did she really have to visit before figuring out that death was universal?
    • To the poet, the scientist seems unimaginative and literal-minded - with his head buried in the ground of facts, incapable of comprehending the larger significance of what he does.
    • First let me get the polemical point out of the way: People who complain about superhero characters' vigilantism are being too literal-minded and missing the point.
    • What is, on paper, a primarily interior experience, stumbles on film with a clunky visual style that remains merely literal instead of challengingly literary.
    • Tonight it's given a spectacularly literal-minded and heterosexual interpretation and, for some reason, a cockney accent.
    • If you'd prefer to remain optimistic about this movie's potential to rise above literal-minded conformity to the source material, then I suggest you don't watch the trailer.
    • Burt's dry wit has, however, occasionally got him into hot water, especially among more literal-minded listeners.
    Synonyms
    literal-minded, down-to-earth, factual, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense, unsentimental, level-headed, hard-headed
  • 4Of, in, or expressed by a letter or the letters of the alphabet.

    literal mnemonics
    Example sentencesExamples
    • ‘You are a literal country, not a visual country,’ he says.
    • The ideas come through although some, as over the weekend, may end up being more visual than literal now.
noun
British Printing
  • A misprint of a letter.

    Example sentencesExamples
    • Extensive mistakes may hardly count (as when the entire first edition was misprinted in italics), but literals can be crucial in a conflicted society which fetishes minor differences.
    • Apart from the distressing number of literals and homophones which infest my proof copy, my main criticism is that she never quite succeeds in bringing her quicksilver subject into full view.
    • In the end of course, there I was giving out about spelling and the piece itself was full of literals.
    Synonyms
    misprint, error, mistake, slip, slip of the pen, keyboarding error, keying error, printing error, typesetting error, typing error, typographical error, corrigendum, erratum

Usage

See literally

Origin

Late Middle English: from Old French, or from late Latin litteralis, from Latin littera (see letter).

 
 
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