LITERARY Synonyms: 42 Similar and Opposite Words

literary

adjective

ˈli-tə-ˌrer-ē

Definition of literary

as in learned

suggestive of the vocabulary used in books the novel's dialogue is a little too literary in flavor to be entirely convincing

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of literary Atlanta author Lydia Mathis’ literary debut features candid, revealing short stories. — Suzanne Van Atten, AJC.com, 20 Sep. 2026 The story won a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Award, which honors literary achievement by Black writers. — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 20 Sep. 2026 How would this prodigious author of eighteen other novels—among them the most adventuresome in the Latin American literary canon—conclude his career? — Ariel Dorfman, The New York Review of Books, 19 Sep. 2026 For readers who are familiar with the literary curse of Plaschke in his column over the years, this prediction is not that. — Los Angeles Times, 19 Sep. 2026 See All Example Sentences for literary

Recent Examples of Synonyms for literary

Adjective

However, those conventions become much more meaningful when students understand the intellectual practices underneath them.

— Saurabh Anand, JSTOR Daily, 24 Sep. 2026
That which enters into the experience of the masses of the people is not what the intellectual knows but what the popular leader feels.

— J. B. MacKinnon, Harpers Magazine, 22 Sep. 2026

Definition of intellectual

Adjective

In the midst of the festivities, among a crowd of bookish faculty and graduate students, Annie and Wendy convinced an overheated newspaper photographer who’d been sent to cover the event to abandon his turtleneck.

— Robert P. Baird, New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2026
And of course, in a general sense, many inquisitive artists are as bookish as anyone.

— Brian Boucher, ARTnews.com, 17 Sep. 2026

Definition of bookish

Adjective

But that was long enough for Anthony Hopkins to nab a Best Actor Oscar for his chillingly erudite cannibal in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs.

— Kevin Jacobsen, Entertainment Weekly, 2 Sep. 2026
Like Dante, Nick Tosches was an undaunted character whose tongue-twisting prose was an iconoclastic mash-up of realism and intricate, erudite lyricism.

— A.D. Amorosi, SPIN, 6 Aug. 2026

Definition of erudite

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literalness

literary

literate

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“Literary.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/literary. Accessed 28 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of literary

adjective

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