Word family noun literature literacy ≠ illiteracy illiterate literati adjective literary literate ≠ illiterate
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishliterarylit‧e‧ra‧ry /ˈlɪtərəri $ ˈlɪtəreri/ ●●○ W2 adjective [only before noun] 1 ALrelating to literature a literary prize literary criticism (=the study of the methods used in writing literature)2 ALtypical of the style of writing used in literature rather than in ordinary writing and talking a literary style of writing3 ALliking literature very much, and studying or producing it a literary womanExamples from the Corpus
literary• literary criticism• The malaise about a shared intellectual and literary culture was short-lived, the product of passing confrontation.• Drawn to the subject via a footnote, McKillop did some literary detective work to uncover Deeks's story.• Gow acted as Housman's literary executor, and supervised a reprint of his edition of Manilius.• What is everywhere assumed, if not always made explicit, is that literary judgement has no place in the academy.• It ended up getting published in the literary magazine but I got a B in the course.• His literary proteges were allowed to publish more and the film industry also prospered.• a very literary style of writing• It largely disappears when literary texts are treated as cultural traces in a cognitive rather than an affective reading.• So many of the literary works having hypocrisy in their title add to it the word exposed, or a synonym.literary criticism• Author of seven books, he is rector of a literary institute, where he lectures on literary criticism.• In all about fifty articles could be classed as literary criticism.• Something similar is true of literary criticism.• The literature of opera includes plenty of criticism, much of it as intellectually impressive as the best literary criticism.• The main game of both critics is to appropriate the language of literary criticism for their analyses of television.• In a longer perspective, the contribution of Marxists to literary criticism is considerable.• In literary criticism, the idea of the postmodern has scarcely taken hold at all.Origin literary (1600-1700) Latin litterarius, from littera; → LETTER1 