Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use literal in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Literal means exactly as stated; read or understood without interpretation; according to the letter; not figurative or metaphorical; following the letter or exact words; not taking liberties; etymonic rather than idiomatic. Example: “The literal translation of Spanish irse al otro barrio is "to go to the other neighbourhood" but it means "to die".”

Examples of literal by meaning

adjectiveExactly as stated; read or understood without interpretation; according to the letter; not figurative or metaphorical...

  • The literal translation of Spanish irse al otro barrio is "to go to the other neighbourhood" but it means "to die".
  • A literal reading of the law would prohibit it, but that is clearly not the intent.

adjectiveFollowing the historical-grammatical method of biblical interpretation.

  • Literal interpretation, on the other hand, is more like a translation that strives for dynamic equivalence and yields the literary sense.1998, Kevin Vanhoozer, “6. Redeeming the Text: The Rationality of Literary Acts”, in Is There a Meaning in This Text?, page 311

adjectiveConsisting of, or expressed by, letters (of an alphabet); using literation.

  • a literal equation

adjectiveUsed nonliterally as an intensifier. See literally for usage notes.

  • Telemarketers are the literal worst.

More sentences with literal

  • Brion escaped the double quote character on Windows by adding a second double quote within the literal.From the entry escape
  • Go your gang, a literal translation of Dutch ga uw gang which means "please go ahead".From the entry Batavism
  • To forestall any problems, we convened on the rule that all the database records would avoid containing certain literal strings.From the entry convene
  • Okay, sure, ignore the opinion of the literal doctor. Let's hear it from the dude who graduated from YouTube University.From the entry YouTube University
  • You decide, but as a freshly minted literal uncle, it does speak to me.2026 March 24, Morgan Park, “Marathon review”, in PC Gamer, archived from the original on 01 Apr 2026. From the entry unc
  • She was his literal hostage yet they glorify it calling Aemond “based” and a “milf enjoyer”.2024 May 1, houseofnim, Reddit. From the entry Alysmond
  • The cranberry word in this idiom is kelaħ, which has no known literal meaning.2019, Livnat Herzig Sheinfux et al., “Verbal multiword expressions: Idiomaticity and flexibility”, in Yannick Parmentier, Jakub Waszczuk…. From the entry cranberry word
  • It follows from this definition that in factored expressions, complements are permitted only for the literals.2018, Vlad P. Shmerko, Svetlana N. Yanushkevich, Sergey Edward Lyshevski, Computer Arithmetics for Nanoelectronics, page 333. From the entry factored
  • Sacoridia is not a literal representation of Maine, but it is Mainelike.2018, Kristen Britain, The Dream Gatherer, Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry Mainelike
  • Yes, that was Vice President Spiro Agnew commemorating the "loyalty" of literal traitors.2017 October 8, “Confederacy” (14:45 from the start), in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 26, John Oliver (actor)…. From the entry traitor
  • The figurative is not simply not the literal, it is more than the literal.2017 May 16, Jerry Stuger, “Kafka and Autism. The Undisclosed Logic Behind Kafka’s Work”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental…. From the entry figurative
  • One of the results of perspectivalization is the circumstantial and contextual suspension of a literal ontological attitude.2016, Marc Lamparello, Reason and Counterpoint, Wipf & Stock Publishing - Eugene & Oregon, page 410. From the entry perspectivalization
  • Evangelicals have long been influenced by dispensationalism, a theology that promotes a literal reading of biblical prophecy.2015 December 14, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “How some evangelicals are challenging a decades-long stance of blanket support for Israel’s…. From the entry dispensationalism
  • Selah means “pause, and think about that” or a more literal definition, “God had spoken.”2014, Joshua Woods, A Song for the Lonely: The Missing Key to Once and for All Seal Your Pact With God, Bloomington, Ind.: Balboa Press…. From the entry selah
  • Clearly, the relationship between pictura and motto became more literal in this emblem.2010, Simon McKeown, The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet, →ISBN, page 183. From the entry pictura
  • Strings are automatically interned if they are assigned to a literal string within code.2004, Mark Schmidt, Simon Robinson, Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook, page 81. From the entry intern
  • The beselved body in fact lives more outside its literal Habit.1992, Brian Massumi, A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia. From the entry beselve
  • The premillenialists were prone to a more literal interpretation of Scripture and were less hopeful concerning progress.1980, George M. Marsden, “Prologue: The Paradox of Revivalist Fundamentalism”, in Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of…. From the entry premillennialism
  • There is in each case a literal infinity of nonfalse representations that can be made.1967, John R. Seeley, The Americanization of the unconscious, page 140. From the entry nonfalse
  • A literal, simple soul that obeyed to the letter the slogan of the Anti-Saloon League.1925, Benjamin De Casseres, Mirrors of New York, page 79. From the entry bootleggery
  • D., — a literal example of the truth marching into benighted Cathay.1909, John Stuart Thomson, The Chinese, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 371. From the entry Turpan
  • The quite literal invention of the "moron" by Henry H.2023, David T. Mitchell, Sharon L. Snyder, A Cultural History of Disability in the Modern Age, page 117. From the entry ablenationalist
  • Kafka wrote from his autistic perspective in which the literal form is a default state of understanding the external world.2017 May 16, Jerry Stuger, “Kafka and Autism. The Undisclosed Logic Behind Kafka’s Work”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental…. From the entry figurative
  • So, management decision(s) making is about figurative synthesis – troping literal meaning – as much as it might be analysis.2015, Alun Munslow, “Managing the Past”, in Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, Terrance G. Weatherbee, editors, The Routledge…. From the entry trope
  • It is most important to distinguish literalistic from literal interpretation.2014 August 20, Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in this Text?. From the entry literalistic
  • It is wonderful how literal and direct the Lenormand cards will be if you allow them to speak clearly and simply.2013, Marcus Katz, Tali Goodwin, Learning Lenormand: Traditional Fortune Telling for Modern Life, →ISBN. From the entry Lenormand
  • In Ada, enumeration literals are allowed to appear in more than one declaration in the same referencing environment.2010, Robert W. Sebesta, Concepts of Programming Languages, Addison-Wesley Longman, page 261. From the entry enumeration
  • You can use props in a literal way to enhance the story, such as shooting a woodworker amidst woodworking tools.2006, Michael Grecco, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait, Amphoto Books, →ISBN, page 109. From the entry prop
  • Those who think the ring is speaking and that Balrogs have wings take the literal word as gospel.1999 August 30, Gordon Nash, “Literalists VS Nonliteralists”, in rec.arts.books.tolkien (Usenet). From the entry Tolkiendil
  • So as not to appear disbelieving, they opted to respond quotationally, to offer literal citation of chapter and verse.1994, Harold M Schulweis, For Those Who Can't Believe. From the entry quotationally
  • The "body, soul, and spirit" of a man correspond respectively to the literal, moral and allegorical-mystical senses of Scripture.1991, Robert W. Herron, Mark's account of Peter's denial of Jesus, page 21. From the entry trichotic
  • For him it is a “dead metaphor,” one that has become conventionalized and has its own literal meaning.1980, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, chapter 27, in Metaphors We Live By. From the entry dead metaphor
  • Only in its introductory presentation of the life community concept and in its l’envoi are these deeper meanings made literal.1951 October, Howard Zahniser, “Nature in Print”, in Nature Magazine, volume 44, number 8, American Nature Association, page 395, column 1. From the entry l'envoi
  • Literal interpretation has always been a marked feature of Premillennialism; in Dispensationalism it has been carried to an extreme.1945, Oswald Thompson Allis, “The Future of Israel and the Millennium”, in Prophecy and the Church: An Examination of the Claim of…. From the entry literalism
  • A growing number of Chinese youth want to "lie flat." This is the literal translation of what the expression "Tang ping" means in Chinese.2022 February 22, “What is the ‘Tang Ping’ Movement Started by Young Chinese who are against Overworking?”, in Malay Mail, Petaling Jaya…. From the entry tang ping

Meaning of literal

  1. adjective Exactly as stated; read or understood without interpretation; according to the letter; not figurative or metaphorical; following the letter or exact words; not taking liberties; etymonic rather than idiomatic.
  2. adjective Actual, real, physical.
  3. adjective That which generally assumes that the plainest reading of a given text is correct but which allows for metaphor where context indicates it.

Full definition of literal

Questions about literal in a sentence

How do you use literal in a sentence?
Literal is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The literal translation of Spanish irse al otro barrio is "to go to the other neighbourhood" but it means "to die".”
What is a short sentence with literal?
“a literal equation”
What does literal mean?
Literal means exactly as stated; read or understood without interpretation; according to the letter; not figurative or metaphorical; following the letter or exact words; not taking liberties; etymonic rather than idiomatic.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: literal (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use literal in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/literal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.