literature

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Alternative forms

• literatuer (obsolete)

Etymology

From Latin literatura or litteratura.

Pronunciation

• (UK)

• IPA: /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹ.ɪ.tʃjʊə(ɹ)/, /ˈlɪt.ɜː(ɹ).ɪ.tʃjʊə(ɹ)/
• SAMPA: /"lIt.(@)r.I.tSjU@(r)/, /"lIt.3:(r).I.tSjU@(r)/

• (US)

• IPA: /ˈlɪt.ɚ.ɪ.tʃɚ/
• SAMPA: /"lUIt.@`.I.tS@`/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

literature (usually uncountable; plural literatures)

1. The body of all written works.
2. The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group, or culture.
3. All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.
4. Written fiction of a high standard.

   SF is rarely literature because the characters are so poorly realised. - Adam Cadre

Meronyms

• See also Wikisaurus:literature

Related terms

• letter
• literal
• literacy
• literate
• literary

Translations

body of all written works

Albanian: literaturë Arabic: الأدب (ar) Aragonese: literatura Asturian: lliteratura Azerbaijani: ədəbiyyat Basque: literatura Bengali: সাহিত্য (bn) Bulgarian: литература (bg) (literatura) Chinese: Mandarin: 文學 (cmn), 文学 (cmn) (wénxué) Czech: literatura (cs) Danish: litteratur (da) Dutch: literatuur (nl) Esperanto: literaturo (eo) Estonian: literatuur (et) Finnish: kirjallisuus (fi) French: littérature (fr) Galician: literatura Georgian: ლიტერატურა (ka) (literatura) German: Literatur (de) Greek: λογοτεχνία (el) (logotechnía) f. Hebrew: ספרות (he) Hindi: साहित्य (hi) Hungarian: irodalom (hu) Ido: literaturo (io) Indonesian: kesusasteraan (id) Interlingua: litteratura (ia) Irish: litríocht Italian: letteratura (it) Japanese: 文献 (ぶんけん) (bunken) Javanese: sastra Kazakh: әдебиет (kk) (ədebiet) Korean: 문학 (ko) (munhak) Latin: litterae (la) Latvian: literatūra (lv)

Limburgish: literatuur Lithuanian: literatūra (lt) Low Saxon: Literatur Luxembourgish: Literatur (lb) Macedonian: литература (literatura) Malayalam: സാഹിത്യം Maltese: letteratura (mt) Nepali: साहित्य (ne) Norwegian: litteratur (no) Occitan: literatura Persian: ادبیات (fa), ادب (fa) (adab) Polish: literatura (pl) Portuguese: literatura (pt) Romanian: literatură (ro) f. Russian: литература (ru) (literatura) f. Scots: leiteratur Scottish Gaelic: litreachas (gd) m. Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: књижевност (sh) Roman: književnost (sh) m. Sicilian: littiratura Slovak: literatúra Slovene: literatura (sl) Spanish: literatura (es) Swedish: litteratur (sv) Tagalog: literatura (tl), panitikan (tl) Tamil: இலக்கியம் (ta) (ilakkiyam) Thai: วรรณกรรม (th) Turkish: literatür (tr), edebiyat (tr), yazın (tr) Ukrainian: література (uk) (literatura) Uyghur: edebiyat Vietnamese: văn chương (vi) Volapük: literat (vo) Welsh: llên West Frisian: literatuer

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

Armenian: գրականություն (grakanut'yun) Icelandic: bókmenntir

Japanese: 文学 (ぶんがく) (bungaku), 文献 (ぶんけん) (bunken) Kurdish: ئاداب Marathi: साहित्य Novial: literature Tajik: адабиёт Urdu: ادب

Anagrams

• literateur