Word.ws English Dictionary

literary present

literary present noun: the present tense as used by convention to describe events in fictional works, such as when explaining the plot of a book or film.

Noun

literary present (uncountable)

  1. The present tense as used by convention to describe events in fictional works, such as when explaining the plot of a book or film.
  2. The present tense as used to describe an action of speaking or writing that lives on through written works or record.

Questions about literary present

What does literary present mean?
Literary present means the present tense as used by convention to describe events in fictional works, such as when explaining the plot of a book or film.
What part of speech is literary present?
Literary present is a noun.

Words near literary present in the dictionary

  1. literary fiction
  2. literary inquisition
  3. literary inquisitions
  4. literary journalism
  5. literary language
  6. literary present
  7. literary science
  8. literary technique
  9. literary techniques
  10. literary theory
  11. literary tourism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: literary present (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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