The literal meaning of a word is its original, basic meaning.

The literal meaning of "television" is "seeing from a distance". television 的字面意思是“从远处看”。

You will need to show more than just a literal understanding of the text. 你需要显示自己对文本的理解没有仅仅停留在字面含义上。

Compare: figurative (LANGUAGE)

A literal translation of a text is done by translating each word separately, without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence.

Her translation is too literal, resulting in unnatural-sounding prose. 她的译文太拘泥于字面了，结果成了冗长而不自然的行文。