adjective
- excessively literary or bookish in style, language, or manner; overly concerned with literary forms or conventions
Usage: often used critically to suggest affectation or lack of naturalness; informal
Examples
- His overliterary prose made the simple story feel unnecessarily complicated.
- The critic dismissed the novel as overliterary and disconnected from real human experience.
- She tried to avoid overliterary language in her essay to make it more accessible to readers.
- The overliterary tone of the advertisement seemed out of place for a casual product.
- His overliterary references to obscure poets made the conversation difficult to follow.