Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Literal

Lit′er·al (-al), a. [F. litéral, littéral, 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-fact; — applied to persons.

Literal contract (Law), a 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.

Lit′er·al, n. Literal meaning. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.