What does literal mean?
Word: Literal
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Literal means keeping to the plain, everyday meaning of the words, with no imaginative sense added.
How do you spell literal?
Syllables: lit - er - al
Tricky part: The word ends in a soft sound that could be heard as el or le, but the correct ending is al.
Watch out for: litral, literel
Memory tip: Literal ends in al, just like normal: a literal meaning is the normal one.
Literal in a sentence
Example 1: My little sister took 'keep an eye on the soup' in its literal sense and stared at the pot.
Example 2: A literal translation of a Hindi joke into English often loses the fun.
Example 3: The guidebook gives the literal meaning of each place name in the valley.
Fun Fact
Literal goes back to the Latin word for a letter of the alphabet, so a literal reading keeps strictly to what is written.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
litteral
a) t
b) r
c) e
d) l
Show answer
a) t. A single t follows the opening li; the doubled t is the slip.
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word:
literal
a) precise
b) factual
c) exact
d) figurative
Show answer
d) figurative. Figurative language uses words in an imaginative way, the opposite of keeping to their plain sense.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
Before we discussed the poem, Ms Rao asked us for a leteral reading of every line.
a) poem
b) leteral
c) reading
d) discussed
Show answer
b) leteral. The word opens with the short i of lit, not an e.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) literal
b) dictionery
c) grammer
d) sentance
Show answer
a) literal. Grammar ends in ar, sentence in ence, and dictionary in ary.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Taken in its literal sense, 'raining cats and dogs' would mean...
a) a light drizzle
b) very heavy rain
c) a cloudy day
d) animals falling from the sky
Show answer
d) animals falling from the sky
2. Which statement here is literal?
a) Her smile lit up the room.
b) My bag weighs a tonne.
c) He has a heart of gold.
d) The sun rises in the east.
Show answer
d) The sun rises in the east.
