1. (a.) According to the letter; exact; not figurative or metaphorical; as, the literal meaning of a phrase\.

2. (a.) Following the letter or exact words; not free.

3. (a.) Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.

4. (a.) Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of fast; -- applied to persons.

5. (n.) Literal meaning.

Christian abecedarian accepted allographic alphabetic approved arid authentic authoritative barren basic bona fide boring candid canonical capital card-carrying colorless conventional correct customary denotative dictionary dinkum down-to-earth dry dull earthbound essential etymological evangelical exact faithful firm following the letter genuine good graphemic honest honest-to-God humdrum ideographic inartificial infecund infertile lawful legitimate lettered lexical lexigraphic lifelike literatim logogrammatic logographic lower-case majuscule matter-of-fact minuscular minuscule mundane natural naturalistic objective of the faith original orthodox orthodoxical pictographic precise proper prosaic prosing prosy pure real realistic received right rightful scriptural semantic simon-pure simple simplistic sincere sound staid standard sterling stolid strict stuffy sure-enough tedious textual traditional traditionalistic transliterated TRUE true to life true to nature true to reality true-blue unadulterated unaffected unassumed unassuming unbiased uncial uncolored uncomplicated unconcocted uncopied uncounterfeited undisguised undisguising undistorted unembellished unexaggerated unfabricated unfanciful unfeigned unfeigning unfictitious unflattering unideal unimaginative unimagined unimitated uninspired uninvented uninventive unoriginal unpoetic unprejudiced unpretended unpretending unqualified unromantic unromanticized unsimulated unspecious unsynthetic unvarnished upper-case verbal verbatim veridical verisimilar word-for-word