Literal

Adjective

 * 1) Exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; according to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical.
 * The literal translation is “hands full of bananas” but it means empty-handed.
 * 1) Following the letter or exact words; not free; not taking liberties.
 * A literal reading of the law would prohibit it, but that is clearly not the intent.
 * 1) Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.

Antonyms

 * figurative

Related terms

 * letter
 * literacy
 * literary
 * literate
 * literature

Noun

 * 1)  A value, as opposed to an identifier, written into the source code of a computer program.

Adverbs for Literal
painfully; punctiliously; insufferably; legally; meticulously; intolerably; ostentatiously; professionally; officiously; unctuously; learnedly; academically; boresomely; unduly; unnecessarily; mercilessly; ruthlessly; unimaginatively; prosaically; mathematically; correctly; severely; uncompromisingly; curiously; exaggeratedly; awfully; uncommonly.

Thesaurus
Christian, abecedarian, accepted, allographic, alphabetic, approved, arid, authentic, authoritative, barren, basic, bona fide, boring, candid, canonical, capital, card-carrying, colorless, conventional, correct, customary, denotative, dictionary, dinkum, down-to-earth, dry, dull, earthbound, essential, etymological, evangelical, exact, faithful, firm, following the letter, genuine, good, graphemic, honest, honest-to-God, humdrum, ideographic, inartificial, infecund, infertile, lawful, legitimate, lettered, lexical, lexigraphic, lifelike, literatim, logogrammatic, logographic, lower-case, majuscule, matter-of-fact, minuscular, minuscule, mundane, natural, naturalistic, objective, of the faith, original, orthodox, orthodoxical, pictographic, precise, proper, prosaic, prosing, prosy, pure, real, realistic, received, right, rightful, scriptural, semantic, simon-pure, simple, simplistic, sincere, sound, staid, standard, sterling, stolid, strict, stuffy, sure-enough, tedious, textual, traditional, traditionalistic, transliterated, true, true to life, true to nature, true to reality, true-blue, unadulterated, unaffected, unassumed, unassuming, unbiased, uncial, uncolored, uncomplicated, unconcocted, uncopied, uncounterfeited, undisguised, undisguising, undistorted, unembellished, unexaggerated, unfabricated, unfanciful, unfeigned, unfeigning, unfictitious, unflattering, unideal, unimaginative, unimagined, unimitated, uninspired, uninvented, uninventive, unoriginal, unpoetic, unprejudiced, unpretended, unpretending, unqualified, unromantic, unromanticized, unsimulated, unspecious, unsynthetic, unvarnished, upper-case, verbal, verbatim, veridical, verisimilar, word-for-word

Etymology
< literal: <  litteralis:, also literalis: <  littera:, litera:; see letter.

Adjective

 * Czech:
 * Dutch:
 * Finnish: ,
 * French:
 * Greek: κατά γράμμα
 * Italian:


 * Japanese: 逐語的な
 * Romanian: literal, literală
 * Russian: буквальный (bukvál’nyj), дословный (doslóvnyj)
 * Swedish: bokstavlig


 * Dutch: ,
 * Finnish:, ,
 * French:
 * Italian:


 * Japanese: 文字通り
 * Romanian: literal, literală
 * Russian:
 * Swedish: ordagrann


 * Dutch:
 * French:
 * Italian:


 * Japanese: 文字上の
 * Romanian: literal, literală
 * Russian:

Noun

 * Dutch: literaal


 * Portuguese: literal, constante

Anagrams

 * tallier

Adjective

 * 1) literal