Dictionary

man of letters en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Calque of French homme de lettres.

Meanings

1. (dated) A literary man; a scholar or author.
   • He was a pure man of letters, untimely born in a world that had no need of letters; […] he had abandoned his real calling, and taken a sub-editorial job on a women's weekly, where fashion-plates and paper patterns alternated with New England love-stories and advertisements of temperance drinks. 1920, Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
   • This may be accounted for largely on the ground that Cicero and Petrarch were men of the same temperament and cast of mind. They were both typical men of letters. The man of letters is intellectually alert; sensitive to impressions and able to report them; hospitable to all ideas of his time; […] 1898, James Harvey Robinson, Henry Winchester Rolfe, Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, published 1909, page 229:

Forms

Coordinates

woman of letters

Relateds

man of law

Translations (40)

es hombre de letras (a literary man) · de Literatin (a literary man) · pt homem das letras (a literary man) · sv litteratör (a literary man) · kk әдебиетші (a literary man) · fi kirjanoppinut (a literary man) · ru литера́тор (a literary man) · pl literat (a literary man) · ar عَالِم (a literary man) · de Literat (a literary man) · ja 文学者 (a literary man) · cmn 文人 (a literary man) · hu irodalmár (a literary man) · ca home de lletres (a literary man) · sv skribent (a literary man) · gd sruthan (a literary man) · cmn 文學家 /文学家 (a literary man) · it uomo di lettere (a literary man) · sv författare (a literary man) · fr littérateur (a literary man) · sh književnik (a literary man) · ga duine liteartha (a literary man) · sv skriftställare (a literary man) · mk книжевник (a literary man) · gd neach-litreachais (a literary man) · cy llenor (a literary man) · nl literaat (a literary man) · ca literat (a literary man) · pa ਅਦੀਬ (a literary man) · es literato (a literary man) · ga litrí (a literary man) · ia homine de litteras (a literary man) · sga litrid (a literary man) · ro om de litere (a literary man) · gv dooinney lettyraght (a literary man) · sv lärd man (a literary man) · fr homme de lettres (a literary man) · gd sruth (a literary man) · gd saoidh (a literary man) · sh књижевник (a literary man)