letters

The word “letters” means literature and the study of writing, especially as an academic subject; scholarly or literary knowledge. In plain terms, literature and literary learning, taken as a whole.

“Letters” is pronounced LEH-tuhz (/ˈlɛtɚz/ in IPA).

Here is “letters” used in a sentence: “She has a longstanding interest in classics and letters.”

“Letters” is a noun.

“Letters” is a fairly common word in modern English.

Here letters means literature and scholarship as a whole. A man of letters, or woman of letters, is a writer or scholar deeply learned in literature and the humanities. The phrase honours someone whose life is devoted to reading, writing, and serious intellectual work.

Literature usually means the body of written creative works, such as novels, poetry, and plays. Letters, in this sense, is broader and more old-fashioned, covering literature together with scholarship and learning in general, as in arts and letters. It emphasises the whole life of the mind.

Phrases like arts and letters, a woman of letters, and the republic of letters all use this sense. A university might award a degree in letters, and someone celebrated in the world of letters is respected across literature and scholarship, not merely for a single book.

The republic of letters is a historical phrase for the international community of writers, scholars, and thinkers who exchanged ideas across borders, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It pictures learning as a shared realm, a republic united by correspondence and a common love of knowledge.