Being molded from concrete, it is practically proof against weather and time, and it is fireproof in a sense of the term far more literal than that generally adopted in large cities.

Ancient commentators, following the order of precedence, interpreted the ninth as an indication of a second eviction, but there seems to be no sound reason for agreeing with them, since they are entirely too literal in their inferences.

I commend the following interpretation, which I have sought to make as conscientiously literal as due regard to idioms of language would permit, to all true lovers of liberty and of the Union, of whatever State, section, or nation.

"Some of these may be confidently pronounced inventions, simple and purely false; some, if true, concerned a different person; some were grounded upon egregious blunders; and not a few upon jests, mistaken by the dull and literal for earnest.

Slow Thin Full New Small Tender Gentle Obscure Smooth True Grand Odd Sober Warm Heavy Particular Soft Yield Keen <Literal vs. Figurative Applications> One of the most interesting things to watch in the study of words is their development from a literal to a figurative application.

To be sure, his interpretations were quite too literal at first, but the whole world of classical scholarship has learned from him the new method of research.

No reasonable man would expect Dickens to be so literal as all that even about Bath or Bury St. Edmunds, which do exist; far less need he be literal about Eatanswill, which didn't exist.