LITERARY WORK

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does literary work mean? 

• LITERARY WORK (noun)
  The noun LITERARY WORK has 1 sense:

1. imaginative or creative writing

  Familiarity information: LITERARY WORK used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LITERARY WORK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Imaginative or creative writing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

literary composition; literary work

Hypernyms ("literary work" is a kind of...):

piece of writing; writing; written material (the work of a writer; anything expressed in letters of the alphabet (especially when considered from the point of view of style and effect))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "literary work"):

acrostic (verse in which certain letters such as the first in each line form a word or message)

belles-lettres; belles lettres (creative writing valued for esthetic content)

dialog; dialogue (a literary composition in the form of a conversation between two people)

fiction (a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact)

fictionalisation; fictionalization (a literary work based partly or wholly on fact but written as if it were fiction)

hagiology (literature narrating the lives (and legends) of the saints)

lucubration (a solemn literary work that is the product of laborious cogitation)

pastoral (a literary work idealizing the rural life (especially the life of shepherds))

poem; verse form (a composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines)

potboiler (a literary composition of poor quality that was written quickly to make money (to boil the pot))

tushery (writing of poor quality; characterized by affected choice of archaic words)

 Context examples 

He is a lecturer and a consultant, but he does not care for general practice, which distracts him from his literary work.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)