How to Use literal in a Sentence

literal

adjective

• I was using the word in its literal sense.
• The story he told was basically true, even if it wasn't the literal truth.
• For many years their home was a literal hole in the ground.
  — Jay Cheshes, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Jan. 2024
• In Night Country, the ghosts of the past are a bit more literal.
  — Megan McCluskey, TIME, 5 Feb. 2024
• The first step to her new normal was literal — Williams had to learn to walk again.
  — Rachel Desantis, Peoplemag, 25 Apr. 2023
• But Titan was a literal core zone that was erased from the game.
  — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 6 May 2023
• And if the product looks and feels like literal jelly, well, hand it over.
  — Ariana Yaptangco, Glamour, 29 Feb. 2024
• Mahogany, Mel Kiper’s No. 2 guard in the nation, was the big man on campus in more than just a literal sense.
  — Trevor Hass, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Sep. 2023
• That can be a literal pain, but the spring assist on this shovel will keep the strain to a minimum.
  — Annie Gabillet, Travel + Leisure, 6 Dec. 2023
• The world of beer has been written about for literal centuries, so there’s no shortage of things to read about.
  — Griffin Sweet, Bon Appétit, 24 Nov. 2023
• In this case, stunning can be read in a literal sense, like having an anvil fall on your head.
  — Brendan McAleer, Car and Driver, 21 Apr. 2023
• The hearing was a strangely literal example of the idea that books, even in the darkest prison, can set you free.
  — Claudia Roth Pierpont, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2024
• There’s a couple things that maybe were literal, but, like, inside-jokey for me.
  — Chris Willman, Variety, 23 June 2023
• The court lacks the literal force or money to enforce its decisions.
  — Jessica A. Schoenherr, The Conversation, 6 Feb. 2024
• The boot’s inner fur spills out of the collar in a plush cloud and is pulled together with a literal (and equally fuzzy) suede bow.
  — Alyssa Brascia, Peoplemag, 19 Dec. 2023
• The silky fabric drapes effortlessly over your curves for a fresh out of the water look that doesn't feel too literal.
  — Sarah Maberry, seventeen.com, 8 Apr. 2023
• Kristin rocked a pale yellow bikini that showed off her literal six-pack abs and super strong legs.
  — Emily Shiffer, Women's Health, 19 July 2023
• Most of us are just lucky enough not to have to lose in front of global news cameras, celebrities, and literal royalty.
  — Macaela MacKenzie, Glamour, 24 Aug. 2023
• Breasts become weapons in less literal ways in other works.
  — Zoë Lescaze, New York Times, 16 May 2023
• One person even fit a literal notebook in to their pocket.
  — Neha Tandon, Women's Health, 12 May 2023
• Once more, Culkin sits there looking like a literal child, making the scene all the more devastating.
  — Jack Francis, Rolling Stone, 11 Apr. 2023
• In the most literal sense, Adam is an actual keeper of bees, tending to hives on Eloise’s property as the film opens.
  — Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 10 Jan. 2024
• North West has now become her mother’s fashion Mini Me in the most literal sense.
  — Kathleen Walsh, Glamour, 26 Sep. 2023
• My literal Queen who has raised mini Queens and a beautiful King.
  — Julia Moore, Peoplemag, 5 Nov. 2023
• Brown sees echoes of Liebes’ work in today’s fashions, not to mention its literal presence in vintage Cashin items that still fly off the racks.
  — Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 July 2023
• The venture, though, which was financed through a loan, came at a steep cost, in literal and figurative terms.
  — Gary Baum, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Sep. 2023
• The touchingly literal conceit of the Olds poem is that death is like this: a problem of a body having gone missing.
  — Seyward Darby, Longreads, 1 Aug. 2023
• What's more striking, though, is that O'Brien and Mullin seem to think nothing of getting into it, frat-party-style, in the literal Senate.
  — Emma Specter, Vogue, 15 Nov. 2023
• For this recipe, save yourself (literal) tears by grating the onion in a food processor with the shredding attachment.
  — Julia Levy, Southern Living, 28 Mar. 2024
• Richard Simmons is looking back at some of his favorite (literal) Hollywood run-ins.
  — EW.com, 26 Mar. 2024

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024