letters

let·ter

L0131000 (lĕt′ər)n.1. a. A written symbol or character representing a speech sound and being a component of an alphabet.b. A written symbol or character used in the graphemic representation of a word, such as the h in Thames. See Note at Thames.2. A written or printed communication directed to a person or organization.3. often letters A certified document granting rights to its bearer.4. Literal meaning: had to adhere to the letter of the law.5. letters(used with a sing. verb)a. Literary culture; belles-lettres.b. Learning or knowledge, especially of literature.c. Literature or writing as a profession.6. Printing a. A piece of type that prints a single character.b. A specific style of type.c. The characters in one style of type.7. An emblem in the shape of the initial of a school awarded for outstanding performance, especially in varsity athletics.v. let·tered, let·ter·ing, let·ters v.tr.1. To write letters on: lettered the paper.2. To write in letters: lettered our name on the mailbox.v.intr.1. To write or form letters.2. To earn a school letter, as for outstanding athletic achievement: She lettered in three collegiate sports.Idiom: to the letter To the last detail; exactly: followed instructions to the letter.

[Middle English, from Old French lettre, from Latin littera, perhaps from Etruscan, from Greek diphtherā, hide, leather, writing surface.]

let′ter·er n.Synonyms: letter, epistle, memorandum, missive, note
These nouns denote a written communication directed to another: received a letter of complaint; the Epistles of the New Testament; a memorandum outlining the attendance policy; a missive of condolence; a thank-you note.

letters

(ˈlɛtəz) n (functioning as plural or singular) 1. (Education) literary knowledge, ability, or learning: a man of letters. 2. (Education) literary culture in general3. (Education) an official title, degree, etc, indicated by an abbreviation: letters after one's name.

Letters

climb Parnassus To pursue the arts, particularly poetry; to court the Muses. Parnassus, a mountain in central Greece near Delphi, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses. It is thus identified with literary endeavors such as the Muses would inspire.

Grub Street Literary hacks or drudges collectively. This expression takes its name from Grub Street (now Milton Street) in London. The area was once a haven for poor, inferior writers and literary hacks. Grub Street, which dates from at least 1630, is also used adjectivally to mean ‘inferior, low-grade, poor.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson used the expression in this passage from Society and Solitude:

Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish Grub Street is the gem we want.

hack A drudge, especially a literary one; a writer or artist who denies his creative talent and does inferior, unoriginal, dull work in an effort to attain commercial and financial success. An abbreviation of hackney, this term originally referred to a horse for hire as well as to the driver of a hackney coach or carriage. This last meaning of hackgave rise to the term’s current meaning.

potboiler An inferior literary or artistic work executed solely for the purpose of boiling the pot ‘earning a living’; a literary or artistic hack, such as produces potboilers.

Such … was the singular and even prosaic origin of the “Ancient Mariner” … surely the most sublime of “potboilers” to be found in all literature. (Henry Duff Traill, Coleridge, 1884)

letters,

in literature, written messages, ranging from those addressed to the public and those sent from lover to lover, to business letters and thank-you notes. The common quality they share is a lively style, echoing the personality of the sender yet aimed at the mind and heart of the receiver. Their intimacy gives them an immediacy that touches general readers as well. Long, eloquent letters, or epistlesepistle
, in the Bible, a letter of the New Testament. The Pauline Epistles (ascribed to St. Paul) are Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews.
..... Click the link for more information. , were the favored means of communication in the ancient world. Those of Cicero and Horace, ranging in subject from political philosophy to literary criticism and social satire, served as models for the formal statement or manifesto. Although the epistles of Saint Paul and Saint Jerome are concerned with the Christian life of the spirit, they are patterned upon classical models. The writings of Cicero and Horace served as models once again for a revival of the epistle in the 18th cent., when John Dryden and Alexander Pope composed verse epistles and Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. Two famous sets of letters vividly portray life in the Middle Ages. The passionate correspondence of Peter Abelard and his mistress, Héloise, poignantly suggests the cruelty of the supposedly civilized church in 12th-century France; the Paston LettersPaston Letters,
collection of personal and business correspondence, mostly among members of the Paston family of Norfolk, England. The letters cover the years from 1422 to 1529, together with deeds and other documents.
..... Click the link for more information. reveal in detail the daily life of an English family in the 15th cent. The 18th cent. was a golden age of letters. Madame de Sévigné, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Lord Chesterfield all entered into long, highly polished, and extremely readable correspondences with their respective children. Letter writing was so popular in England at this time that Samuel Richardson capitalized on the vogue by writing the first epistolary novels, Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747–48). Each was meant to serve as a guide for writing different kinds of letters as well as for designating correct female behavior under trying circumstances. Among British writers of the 19th cent., the best correspondents included John Keats, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, and R. L. Stevenson. George Bernard Shaw wrote love letters to the actress Ellen Terry for three years before they met. Their eventual encounter was not a success, but the correspondence continued for 23 years. The particular ability of letters to convey with immediacy not only the emotions and tragedies of a past time but also the substance of daily life is well illustrated in The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War (1972, ed. by Robert Myers), a collection of letters written by a Georgia family between 1854 and 1868. Important to students of American literature are the letters of the editor Maxwell Perkins to such writers as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Thomas Wolfe. Also illuminating, partly because of their very existence, are the letters of Groucho Marx to T. S. Eliot.

letters

1. literary knowledge, ability, or learning 2. literary culture in general 3. an official title, degree, etc., indicated by an abbreviation

Letters

Related to Letters: Fonts

letters

n. shorthand for letters testamentary or letters of administration, which authorize a person to administer the estate of a person who has died. (See: letters testamentary, letters of administration)

ROGATORY, LETTERS. A kind of commission from a judge authorizing and requesting a judge of another jurisdiction to examine a witness. Vide Letters Rogatory.

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noun the literary culture

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noun scholarly attainment

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