Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

letteral en · ADJ

From letter + -al. The Lojban sense was coined by James Cooke Brown by analogy with numeral.

(historical, not-comparable) Referring to a type of musical notation used by Shakers, based on letters instead of notes.
(not-comparable, rare) Regarding letters of the alphabet.
- [A certain effect is achieved] by a letter, by “old man R”, as the master agent is alone named[…]Thus, when Hitchcock repeats certain names and syllabic or even letteral patterns across his films, they appear to link up in active networks[…]Such repetitions isolate specific signifiers—individual letters or letteral clusters, sounds[…], visual “puns”, and citations—which may operate like monadic and nomadic switchboards whose proliferation continues to alter the afterlife not only of the film texts themselves[…]but the literary or cultural mnemonics that they have become embedded in. 2001, Tom Cohen, “Political Thrillers: Hitchcock, de Man, and Secret Agency in the "Aesthetic State"”, in Material events: Paul de Man and the afterlife of theory, page 117:

From letter + -al. The Lojban sense was coined by James Cooke Brown by analogy with numeral.

(alt-of, obsolete) Obsolete form of literal (“a misprint that affects a letter”).
alt of literal
- In order to avoid the character of being slovenly, always read the lines as composed. This should be done as soon as they are finished and before spacing out; in time the habit will become so fixed, that in spacing out, or even in composing the line, the eye will wander over the words, and detect any letterals. 1898, Charles Thomas Jacobi, Printing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Typography as Applied More Particularly to the Printing of Books, pages 57–58:
- LITERALS type characters: to read proof for literals is to read letter for letter, watching for proper spelling, punctuation, etc., as well as for typos: formerly spelled letterals. [1971, Ruth Kimball Kent, The Language of Journalism: A Glossary of Print-communications Terms, page 82:
(Lojban) The name of a letter, such as gy. for the letter G.

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
letterals	Number=Plur		lexicographic