literary
adjective
Simple meaning
Appropriate to literature rather than everyday writing.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
literuhreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɪtɚɛɹi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or relating to or characteristic of literature
Relating to writers, or the profession of literature.
Knowledgeable of literature or writing.
Appropriate to literature rather than everyday writing.
Bookish.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or relating to or characteristic of literature
Used this way, literary is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use literary
- “The city hosts an annual literary festival celebrating various authors.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind.
In a literal sense.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An agent who represents an author in dealings with publishers.
A summary of the subject or plot of a literary work or play or movie.
Imaginative or creative writing.
A critic of literature.
A written evaluation of a work of literature.
A style of expressing yourself in writing.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of or relating to or characteristic of literature
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.