Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Adherence to the explicit sense of a given text or doctrine.
  • noun Literal portrayal; realism.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Literal interpretation or understanding; adherence to the exact letter or precise significance, as in interpreting or translating.
  • noun In art, exact rendering or representation; unimaginative exactness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun That which accords with the letter; a mode of interpreting literally; adherence to the letter.
  • noun (Fine Arts) The tendency or disposition to represent objects faithfully, without abstraction, conventionalities, or idealization.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Literal interpretation or understanding; adherence to the exact letter or precise significance, as in interpreting or translating.
  • noun art The style of art portraying a subject as literally and accurately as possible.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the doctrine of realistic (literal) portrayal in art or literature
  • noun a disposition to interpret statements in their literal sense

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

literal +‎ -ism

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