letters
nounUS /ˈlɛtɚz/ · UK /ˈlɛtəz/
1
Literature (school subject).
- Rickert was the first woman (and second individual) to be awarded a Ph.D. in English letters and philology with that academic honor at the University of Chicago.
2
The liberal arts, humanities, learning (broad accumulated cultural knowledge).
- Though architecture in ancient Rome was not generally considered to belong to the artes liberales, Vitruvius easily qualified as a man of letters because of his wide learning.
- He read widely throughout these days, for his father had a taste for modern letters, and new books lay littered about the rooms.1899, John Buchan, The Far Islands:
- Derived terms
- arts and letters, letters patent, man of letters, woman of letters