What's the difference between figurative and literal?

Figurative


Definition:

  • (a.) Representing by a figure, or by resemblance; typical; representative.
  • (a.) Used in a sense that is tropical, as a metaphor; not literal; -- applied to words and expressions.
  • (a.) Abounding in figures of speech; flowery; florid; as, a highly figurative description.
  • (a.) Relating to the representation of form or figure by drawing, carving, etc. See Figure, n., 2.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Today’s figures tell us little about the timing of the first increase in interest rates, which will depend on bigger picture news on domestic growth, pay trends and perceived downside risks in the global economy,” he said.
  • (2) To this figure an additional 250,000 older workers must be added, who are no longer registered as unemployed but nevertheless would be interested in finding another job.
  • (3) The criticism over the downgrading of the leader of the Lords was led by Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, a former Scotland secretary, who is a respected figure on the right.
  • (4) Brown's model, which goes far further than those from any other senior Labour figure, and the modest new income tax powers for Holyrood devised when he was prime minister, edge the party much closer to the quasi-federal plans championed by the Liberal Democrats.
  • (5) According to some reports as many as 30 people were killed in the explosion, although that figure could not be independently confirmed.
  • (6) As increases to the Isa allowance are based on the CPI inflation figure for the year to the previous September, the new data suggests the current Isa limit of £15,240 will remain unchanged next year.
  • (7) Shelter’s analysis of MoJ figures highlights high-risk hotspots across the country where families are particularly at risk of losing their homes, with households in Newham, east London, most exposed to the possibility of eviction or repossession, with one in every 36 homes threatened.
  • (8) Mitotic figures and leukotriene B4 levels in lesions decreased 86% and 64%, respectively, after seven days of cyclosporine therapy.
  • (9) Even if it were not the case that police use a variety of tricks to keep recorded crime figures low, this data would still represent an almost meaningless measure of the extent of crime in society, for the simple reason that a huge proportion of crimes (of almost all sorts) have always gone unreported.
  • (10) They urged the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make air quality a higher priority and release the latest figures on premature deaths.
  • (11) Which must make yesterday's jobs figures doubly alarming for the coalition.
  • (12) Of particular note is the difference between Black American and Nigerian figures.
  • (13) At autopsy, this DOCA-hypertensive rat was found to have a form of hepatitis associated with proliferative activity, i.e., cellular unrest, mitotic figures and oval cell hyperplasia.
  • (14) Okawa, who became the world's oldest person last June following the death at 116 of fellow Japanese Jiroemon Kimura , was given a cake with just three candles at her nursing home in Osaka – one for each figure in her age.
  • (15) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
  • (16) The figures, published in the company’s annual report , triggered immediate anger from fuel poverty campaigners who noted that energy suppliers had just been rapped over the knuckles by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for overcharging .
  • (17) Figures from 228 organisations, of which 154 are acute hospital trusts, show that 2,077 inpatient procedures have been cancelled due to the two-day strike alongside 3,187 day case operations and procedures.
  • (18) It seams rational to proceed to an earlier total correction in these cases when well defined criteria are fullfilled, as the mortality figures of the palliative and corrective procedures have a tendency to reach each other: (3,2 versus 5,7%).
  • (19) It is understood that Cooper rejected pressure from senior Labour figures last week for both her and Liz Kendall to drop out and leave the way clear for Burnham to contest Corbyn alone.
  • (20) Human figure drawings of 12 pediatric oncology patients were significantly smaller in height, width, and area than were drawings of 12 school children and 12 pediatric general surgery patients paired for sex and age.

Literal


Definition:

  • (a.) According to the letter or verbal expression; real; not figurative or metaphorical; as, the literal meaning of a phrase.
  • (a.) Following the letter or exact words; not free.
  • (a.) Consisting of, or expressed by, letters.
  • (a.) Giving a strict or literal construction; unimaginative; matter-of fast; -- applied to persons.
  • (n.) Literal meaning.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They are just literally lying.” In August Microsoft severed its ties, saying Alec’s stance on climate change and several other issues “conflicted directly with Microsoft’s values”.
  • (2) Estimated fluid consumption dropped from 10 liters to 4 liters daily and incidents of hyponatremia decreased by 62%.
  • (3) Resting plasma epinephrine and norepinephrine levels were 13.1 and 2.1 nmol liter-1 for the marine toad (Bufo marinus).
  • (4) And we literally had hundreds of thousands of them."
  • (5) Standard additions are unnecessary; Pt concentrations are read from a calibration chart of peak heights, which is linear up to 1.6 mg per liter.
  • (6) Communication issues in obtaining organ donation consent were examined, with particular focus on what are literally life-and-death decisions.
  • (7) It could still be terrorism but it looks as if the aircraft went out of control because the controls were literally burning up.
  • (8) A novel vector was employed which permits rapid and highly efficient cleavage of the GST fusion protein yielding 10 mg of purified PurH product per liter of bacterial culture.
  • (9) You literally never see that at political rallies, though obviously at Tea Party ones they are there all the time."
  • (10) An empirical rate expression was developed from experimental data which led to a prediction that the natural rate of oxidation in the ocean is about 0.023 micromoles of As(III) per liter each year.
  • (11) A technology for preparation of purified concentrates of rabies virus has been developed permitting to use simultaneously dozens of liters of tissue culture virus-containing fluid for the preparation of a concentrate.
  • (12) The maximum effect was obtained with 10(-7) molar gibberellic acid, whereas concentrations greater than 5 x 10(-7) mole per liter were inhibitory.
  • (13) Years ahead of its time, it saw each song presented theatrically, the musicians concealed in the wings (although Bowie said that they kept creeping on to the stage, literally unable to resist the spotlight) and with Bowie performing on a cherry-picker and on a giant hand, both of which kept breaking down.
  • (14) Some women attended the protest wearing jeans and T-shirts, while others took the mission of reclaiming the word "slut" – one of the stated objectives of the movement – more literally and turned out in overtly provocative fishnets and stilettos.
  • (15) But nobody got the reference and "the next day it was literally on CNN".
  • (16) 1.57pm BST Lap 36: Punchy stuff from Jules Bianchi up to 13th, literally bumping his way through Kobayashi on the inside.
  • (17) The majority of children came from low socio-economic homes (61%) with mostly illiterate or semi-literate mothers.
  • (18) As compared with the normoglycemic patients, the patients with hypoglycemia had elevated median plasma concentrations of glucagon (44 vs. 11 pmol per liter; P = 0.001), epinephrine (3400 vs. 1500 pmol per liter; P = 0.012), norepinephrine (7500 vs. 2900 pmol per liter; P = 0.002), and lactate (3.5 vs. 2.1 mmol per liter; P = 0.020) and similar alanine and beta-hydroxybutyrate concentrations.
  • (19) Finally, poliovirus experimentally seeded in 20 liters of tape water was recovered from Johns-Manville D79-Johns-Manville D39 or Johns-Manville D79-Filterite 0.45 micron 142-mm filter combinations was a efficiencies of 86 and 85%, respectively.
  • (20) Results concerning existence and uniqueness of equilibria, stability of the equilibria, and boundedness of solutions suggest that "compensatory" systems might not be compensatory in the literal sense.