literary

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: lit=er=ar=y

CIDE DICTIONARY

literary, a. [L. litterarius, literarius, fr. littera, litera, a letter: cf. F. littéraire. See Letter.].

•  Of or pertaining to letters or literature; pertaining to learning or learned men; as, literary fame; a literary history; literary conversation.  [1913 Webster]

  "He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit."  [1913 Webster]
•  Versed in, or acquainted with, literature; occupied with literature as a profession; connected with literature or with men of letters; as, a literary man.  [1913 Webster]

  "In the literary as well as fashionable world."  [1913 Webster]

Literary property. (a) Property which consists in written or printed compositions. (b) The exclusive right of publication as recognized and limited by law.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

literary, adj.
1 of, constituting, or occupied with books or literature or written composition, esp. of the kind valued for quality of form.
2 well informed about literature.
3 (of a word or idiom) used chiefly in literary works or other formal writing.

Idiom

literary executor see EXECUTOR. literary history the history of the treatment of a subject in literature.

Derivative

literarily adv. literariness n.

Etymology

L litterarius (as LETTER)

THESAURUS

literary

academic, belletristic, bibliophagic, bluestocking, book-fed, book-learned, book-loving, book-minded, book-read, book-wise, bookish, booky, classical, cultivated, cultured, donnish, educated, erudite, formal, inkhorn, learned, lettered, literate, pedantic, refined, scholarly, scholastic, well-read, written

ROGET THESAURUS

literary

Language

N language, phraseology, speech, tongue, lingo, vernacular, mother tongue, vulgar tongue, native tongue, household words, King's English, Queen's English, dialect, confusion of tongues, Babel, pasigraphie, pantomime, onomatopoeia, betacism, mimmation, myatism, nunnation, pasigraphy, lexicology, philology, glossology, glottology, linguistics, chrestomathy, paleology, paleography, comparative grammar, literature, letters, polite literature, belles lettres, muses, humanities, literae humaniores, republic of letters, dead languages, classics, genius of language, scholarship, lingual, linguistic, dialectic, vernacular, current, bilingual, diglot, hexaglot, polyglot, literary, syllables govern the world.