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Literal vs Truth - What's the difference?

literal | truth |

As nouns the difference between literal and truth

is that literal is (programming) a value, as opposed to an identifier, written into the source code of a computer program while truth is the state or quality of being true to someone or something.

As an adjective literal

is exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; according to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical.

As a verb truth is

(obsolete|transitive) to assert as true; to declare, to speak truthfully.

literal

English

(wikipedia literal) (Webster 1913)

Alternative forms

* litteral (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; according to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical.
    • The literal translation is “hands full of bananas” but it means empty-handed.
  • * Hooker
    • a middle course between the rigour of literal translation and the liberty of paraphrasts
  • Following the letter or exact words; not free; not taking liberties.
    • A literal reading of the law would prohibit it, but that is clearly not the intent.
  • (uncommon) Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.
    • a literal equation
  • * Johnson
    • The literal notation of numbers was known to Europeans before the ciphers.
  • (of a person) Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of-fact.

    • Antonyms

    * (exactly as stated) figurative

    Related terms

    * letter * literacy * literary * literate * literature

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (programming) A value, as opposed to an identifier, written into the source code of a computer program.
  • (logic) A propositional variable or the negation of a propositional variable.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_%28logic%29]

    • See also

    * constant * prime formula

    External links

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    truth

    English

    Alternative forms

    * trewth (obsolete)

    Noun

    (order of senses) (en-noun)
  • The state or quality of being true to someone or something.
  • (label) Faithfulness, fidelity.
  • * (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
    • Alas! they had been friends in youth, / But whispering tongues can poison truth .
  • (label) A pledge of loyalty or faith.
  • True facts, genuine depiction or statements of reality.
  • * (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
    • The truth depends on, or is only arrived at by, a legitimate deduction from all the facts which are truly material.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Magician’s brain , passage=The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”.}}
  • Conformity to fact or reality; correctness, accuracy.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01, author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31, magazine=(American Scientist), title= How to Be Manipulative
    • , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}
  • Conformity to rule; exactness; close correspondence with an example, mood, model, etc.
  • * John Mortimer (1656?-1736)
    • Ploughs, to go true, depend much on the truth of the ironwork.
  • That which is real, in a deeper sense; spiritual or ‘genuine’ reality.
  • * 1820 , (John Keats), (Ode on a Grecian Urn)
    • Beauty is truth', ' truth beauty, - that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
  • (label) Something acknowledged to be true; a true statement or axiom.
  • * 1813 , (Jane Austen), (Pride and Prejudice)
    • It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
  • Topness. (See also truth quark.)

    • Synonyms

    * See

    Antonyms

    * falsehood, falsity, lie, nonsense, untruth, half-truth

    Derived terms

    * half-truth * if truth be told * tell the truth * truthful * truthiness * truthless * truth or dare * truth serum * truthy

    Related terms

    * true * untrue

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To assert as true; to declare, to speak truthfully.
    • Had they [the ancients] dreamt this, they would have truthed it heaven. — Ford.
    1966', ''You keep lying, when you oughta be '''truthin' — Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"

    See also

    * (wikipedia)

    Statistics

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