Literal

Literal may refer to:

  • Literal and figurative language, taken in a non-figurative sense
  • Literal translation, the close adherence to the forms of a source language text
  • Literal legal interpretations also referred to as Strict constructionism and the literal or plain meaning rule
  • Terminal symbol in regular expressions and in descriptions of formal grammars
  • Literal (mathematical logic), an elementary proposition or its negation in logical expressions
  • Literal (computer programming), a notation for representing a value within programming language source code
  • Literal (magazine), a quarterly bilingual magazine
  • A typographical error, normally to one letter or number
  • A chunk of input data that is represented "as is" in data compressed using data compression

Famous quotes containing the word literal:

    “The literal alternatives to [abortion] are suicide, motherhood, and, some would add, madness. Consequently, there is some confusion, discomfort, and cynicism greeting efforts to “find” or “emphasize” or “identify” alternatives to abortion.”
    —Connie J. Downey (b. 1934)

    “It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”
    —Brian Friel (b. 1929)

    “Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.”
    —Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)