noun learning; acquaintance with letters or books.
2. literature ·noun the occupation, profession, or business of doing literary work.
3. literature ·noun the class of writings distinguished for beauty of style or expression, as poetry, essays, or history, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which contain positive knowledge; belles-lettres.
4. literature ·noun the collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of biblical criticism; the literature of chemistry.