Dictionary
Thesaurus
Reference
Translate
Web
Related Searches
on Ask.com
Synonyms
Nearby Entries
literal - 6 dictionary results

lit⋅er⋅al

  [lit-er-uhl]
Use literal in a Sentence
–adjective
1. in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical: the literal meaning of a word.
2. following the words of the original very closely and exactly: a literal translation of Goethe.
3. true to fact; not exaggerated; actual or factual: a literal description of conditions.
4. being actually such, without exaggeration or inaccuracy: the literal extermination of a city.
5. (of persons) tending to construe words in the strict sense or in an unimaginative way; matter-of-fact; prosaic.
6. of or pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.
7. of the nature of letters.
8. expressed by letters.
9. affecting a letter or letters: a literal error.
–noun
10. a typographical error, esp. involving a single letter.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME < LL litterālis of letters. See letter, al1

Related forms:
lit⋅er⋅al⋅ness, noun

Synonyms:
3. truthful, exact, reliable.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To literal
lit·er·al   (lĭt'ər-əl)   
adj.  
  1. Being in accordance with, conforming to, or upholding the exact or primary meaning of a word or words.
  2. Word for word; verbatim: a literal translation.
  3. Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor, or embellishment; factual; prosaic: a literal description; a literal mind.
  4. Consisting of, using, or expressed by letters: literal notation.
  5. Conforming or limited to the simplest, nonfigurative, or most obvious meaning of a word or words.
n.   Computer Science
A letter or symbol that stands for itself as opposed to a feature, function, or entity associated with it in a programming language: $ can be a symbol that refers to the end of a line, but as a literal, it is a dollar sign.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin litterālis, of letters, from Latin littera, lītera, letter; see letter.]
lit'er·al·ness n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

Literal

Lit"er*al\, a. [F. lit['e]ral, litt['e]ral, L. litteralis, literalis, fr. littera, litera, a letter. See Letter.]

1. 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.

2. Following the letter or exact words; not free.

A middle course between the rigor of literal translations and the liberty of paraphrasts. --Hooker.

3. Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.

The literal notation of numbers was known to Europeans before the ciphers. --Johnson.

4. Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of fast; -- applied to persons.

Literal contract (Law), contract of which the whole evidence is given in writing. --Bouvier.

Literal equation (Math.), an equation in which known quantities are expressed either wholly or in part by means of letters; -- distinguished from a numerical equation.

Literal

Lit"er*al\, n. Literal meaning. [Obs.] --Sir T. Browne.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Cite This Source
Language Translation for : literal
Spanish: literal,
German: buchstäblich,
Japanese: 文字通りの
More Translations »

literal 
1382, "taking words in their natural meaning" (originally in ref. to Scripture and opposed to mystical or allegorical), from O.Fr. literal, from L.L. lit(t)eralis "of or belonging to letters or writing," from L. lit(t)era "letter." Sense of "verbally exact" is attested from 1599. Literal-minded is attested from 1869. Literally is often used erroneously, even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate "what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense" (1687), which is opposite to the word's real meaning.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source

literal programming
A constant made available to a process, by inclusion in the executable text. Most modern systems do not allow texts to modify themselves during execution, so literals are indeed constant; their value is written at compile-time and is read-only at run time.
In contrast, values placed in variables or files and accessed by the process via a symbolic name, can be changed during execution. This may be an asset. For example, messages can be given in a choice of languages by placing the translation in a file.
Literals are used when such modification is not desired. The name of the file mentioned above (not its content), or a physical constant such as 3.14159, might be coded as a literal. Literals can be accessed quickly, a potential advantage of their use.
(1996-01-23)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
Cite This Source
Search another word or see literal on Thesaurus | Reference