Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Adherence to the explicit sense of a given text or doctrine.
- noun Literal portrayal; realism.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Literal interpretation or understanding; adherence to the exact letter or precise significance, as in interpreting or translating.
- noun In art, exact rendering or representation; unimaginative exactness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun That which accords with the letter; a mode of interpreting literally; adherence to the letter.
- noun (Fine Arts) The tendency or disposition to represent objects faithfully, without abstraction, conventionalities, or idealization.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Literal interpretation or understanding; adherence to the exact letter or precise significance, as in interpreting or translating.
- noun art The style of art
portraying a subject as literally and accurately as possible.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the doctrine of realistic (literal) portrayal in art or literature
- noun a disposition to interpret statements in their literal sense
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This literalism is exemplified by another sign protesting Life of Brian (above right).
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The best example of mandate literalism is the 1980 election.
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Liz sez, A bit of over-literalism from the UK Trading Standards people.
Boing Boing: November 12, 2006 - November 18, 2006 Archives 2006
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I did not mean to offend you, so I do apologize for expressing my opinion that literalism is "absurd."
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Controlling for education (and any other demographics you might care to use), the effect of Biblical literalism is statistically insignificant, but still has the wrong sign (i.e.,
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Conflating religion with biblical literalism is not an argument, it's a mistake.)
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I could go into a long screed about Judaic storytelling and narrative techniques and why the concept of Bibilical literalism is problematic, but, like I said, this isn’t really the place, or indeed, the point.
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As Jew, the notion of literalism is a bit ridiculous to me, as Pshat – the literal interpretation of the Torah – is considered the least of the levels of knowledge.
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I know what you mean when you use "literalism" in your discussions; but I would have hoped from a bible scholar that such over-generalized usage would not be part of the vocabulary of such an educated fellow.
Limits of Literalism James F. McGrath 2008
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I apologize if my statements about "literalism" and "inerrancy" are not couched in the language of friendly dialogue that I usually strive for.
Archive 2008-12-01 James F. McGrath 2008
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