Meaning of साहित्य in English

Learning; acquaintance with letters or books.
The collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of Biblical criticism; the literature of chemistry.
The class of writings distinguished for beauty of style or expression, as poetry, essays, or history, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which contain positive knowledge; belles-lettres.
The occupation, profession, or business of doing literary work.
Alt. of Ingrediency
Of or pertaining to letters or literature; pertaining to learning or learned men; as, literary fame; a literary history; literary conversation.
Versed in, or acquainted with, literature; occupied with literature as a profession; connected with literature or with men of letters; as, a literary man.
Consisting of matter; not spiritual; corporeal; physical; as, material substance or bodies.
Hence: Pertaining to, or affecting, the physical nature of man, as distinguished from the mental or moral nature; relating to the bodily wants, interests, and comforts.
Of solid or weighty character; not insubstantial; of cinsequence; not be dispensed with; important.
Pertaining to the matter, as opposed to the form, of a thing. See Matter.
The substance or matter of which anything is made or may be made.
To form from matter; to materialize.