literature
noun
Simple meaning
All the papers.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
literuhcherSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɪtɚətʃɚ
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.
noun
usually preceded by the
All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.
Creative writing of recognized artistic value
The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group, or culture.
The body of all written works.
Written fiction of a high standard.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.
Used this way, literature is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use literature
- “Her place in literature is secure.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Study of literary works from different cultures (often in translation).
A master's degree in literature.
Relational database of the United States National Library of Medicine for the storage and retrieval of bibliographical information concerning the biomedical literature.
Hindu literature written in Sanskrit.
Ancient rabbinical writings.
Any of the most ancient sacred writings of Hinduism written in early Sanskrit.
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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.