Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Literature
Lit′er-a-ture
(lĭt′ẽr-ȧ-tū̍r; 135)
, Noun.
[F.
littérature
, L. litteratura
, literatura
, learning, grammar, writing, fr. littera
, litera
, letter. See Letter
.] 1.
Learning; acquaintance with letters or books.
2.
The collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period;
as, the
literature
of Biblical criticism; the literature
of chemistry.3.
The class of writings distinguished for beauty of style or expression, as poetry, essays, or history, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which contain positive knowledge; belles-lettres.
Syn. – Science; learning; erudition; belles-lettres.
See
Science
. – Literature
, Learning
, Erudition
. Literature, in its widest sense, embraces all compositions in writing or print which preserve the results of observation, thought, or fancy; but those upon the positive sciences (mathematics, etc.) are usually excluded. It is often confined, however, to belles-lettres, or works of taste and sentiment, as poetry, eloquence, history, etc., excluding abstract discussions and mere erudition. A man of literature (in this narrowest sense) is one who is versed in belles-lettres; a man of learning excels in what is taught in the schools, and has a wide extent of knowledge, especially, in respect to the past; a man of erudition is one who is skilled in the more recondite branches of learned inquiry. The origin of all positive science and philosophy, as well as of all
literature
and art, in the forms in which they exist in civilized Europe, must be traced to the Greeks. Sir G. C. Lewis.
Learning
thy talent is, but mine is sense. Prior.
Some gentlemen, abounding in their university
erudition
, fill their sermons with philosophical terms. Swift.
Webster 1828 Edition
Literature
LIT'ERATURE
,Noun.
Definition 2024
literature
literature
English
Alternative forms
- literatuer (obsolete)
Noun
literature (usually uncountable, plural literatures)
- The body of all written works.
- The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group, or culture.
- All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.
- 1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 7, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 373:
- The obvious question to ask at this point is: ‘Why posit the existence of a set of Thematic Relations (THEME, AGENT, INSTRUMENT, etc.) distinct from constituent structure relations?ʼ The answer given in the relevant literature is that a variety of linguistic phenomena can be accounted for in a more principled way in terms of Thematic Functions than in terms of constituent structure relations.
-
- Written fiction of a high standard.
- However, even “literary” science fiction rarely qualifies as literature, because it treats characters as sets of traits rather than as fully realized human beings with unique life stories. —Adam Cadre, 2008
Meronyms
- See also Wikisaurus:literature
Related terms
Translations
body of all written works
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the collected creative writing of a nation, people, group or culture
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all the papers, treatises etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject
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