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  1. LITERAL SENSE definition | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples

    • American

      In a literal sense, the pictures have got even smaller now....

    • Literal-Minded

      Tending to take words and statements in their literal...

    • LITERAL

      7 meanings: 1. in exact accordance with or limited to the...

    • Examples and Observations
    • Processing Literal and Non-Literal Meanings
    • 'What's The Difference?'
    • Literally and Figuratively
    • Distinction Between Sentence Meaning and Speaker Meaning
    • Lemony Snicket on Literal and Figurative Escapes

    "Dictionary definitions are written in literal terms. For example, 'It is time to feed the cats and dogs.' This phrase 'cats and dogs' is used in a literal sense, for the animals are hungry and it is time to eat. "Figurative language paints word pictures and allows us to 'see' a point. For example: 'It is raining cats and dogs!' Cats and dogs do no...

    How do we process metaphorical utterances? The standard theory is that we process non-literal language in three stages. First, we derive the literal meaning of what we hear. Second, we test the literal meaning against the contextto see if it is consistent with it. Third, if the literal meaning does not make sense with the context, we seek an altern...

    "[A]sked by his wife whether he wants to have his bowling shoes laced over or laced under, Archie Bunker answers with a question: 'What's the difference?' Being a reader of sublime simplicity, his wife replies by patiently explaining the difference between lacing over and lacing under, whatever this may be, but provokes only ire. 'What's the differ...

    "People have used literally to mean figuratively for centuries, and definitions to this effect have appeared in The Oxford English Dictionary and The Merriam-Webster Dictionary since the early 1900s, accompanied by a note that such usage might be 'considered irregular' or 'criticized as a misuse.' But literally is one of those words that, regardles...

    It is crucial to distinguish between what a sentence means (i.e., its literal sentence meaning) and what the speaker means in the utterance of the sentence. We know the meaning of a sentence as soon as we know the meanings of the elements and the rules for combining them. But of course, notoriously, speakers often mean more than or mean something d...

    "It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between 'literally and figuratively.' If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it’s happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figu...

    • Richard Nordquist
  2. 7 meanings: 1. in exact accordance with or limited to the primary or explicit meaning of a word or text 2. word for word 3..... Click for more definitions.

  3. 6 days ago · Quick Reference. Confined to the simplest primary meaning of a word, statement, or text, as distinct from any figurative sense (see figure) which it may carry—whether ironic, allegorical, metaphoric, or symbolic. Thus the literal sense of a text is its most straightforward meaning. Literalism is a tendency to interpret texts according to ...

  4. The meaning of LITERAL is according with the letter of the scriptures. How to use literal in a sentence. according with the letter of the scriptures; adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression : actual…

  5. Literal language is the usage of words exactly according to their direct, straightforward, or conventionally accepted meanings: their denotation. Figurative (or non-literal ) language is the usage of words in a way that deviates from their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complex meaning or a heightened effect. [ 1 ]

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  7. The literal sense of a word or phrase is its most basic sense. 2. A literal translation is one in which you translate each word of the original work rather than giving the meaning of each expression or sentence using words that sound natural.

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