man of letters

man of letters

A man who is well-versed in literature and related scholarly pursuits. As a man of letters, the professor could easily speak for hours on the works of Shakespeare.
See also: letter, man, of
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a man (or woman) of letters

a scholar or writer.
See also: letter, man, of
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • a man of letters
  • a man/woman of few words
  • man of few words
  • man of few words, a
  • a man of few words
  • ladies' man
  • a ladies' man
  • man on the make
  • a man after (one's) own heart
  • a man, woman, etc. after your own heart
References in periodicals archive
The disintegration of the literary culture of the nineteenth century was accompanied by the gradual disappearance after 1900 of the man of letters himself.
Nevertheless, it is important that this error be corrected, lest it lead to a misinterpretation of Donne posing deliberately as a man of letters, rather than in the more conventional posture of melancholic gentleman armed with sword.
Puerto Rican educator and man of letters. Hostos was educated in Spain, where he wrote La peregrinacion de Bayoan (1863), a political novel, and fought for the short-lived republic of 1868.
(1694 - 1773) Statesman and man of letters. A friend of Alexander Pope and an important patron of letters, Lord Chesterfield was unsuccessful in his belated attempt to patronize Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language after it had been completed.
We have lost a humble scholar, who in one of his last interviews called himself a passionate learner; which is the mark of a genuine man of letters and certainly Joyo Sahib was always so modest about his scholarship', they said.
In his first official statement defending his new boss, he wrote: "I am Marc Kasowitz, Predisent Trump's personal lawyer." Mr Kasowitz is clearly a man of letters. But, like the President, he has a nasty habit of putting them in the wrong order.
Ong considers central issues that emerge from scholar-official and man of letters Li Mengyang's (1473-1530) defense of poetry, and addresses larger questions about Ming intellectual history.
Which famous man of letters said: "When a Committee become in 1906?
Man of quality, man of letters; the Abbe Prevost between novel and newspaper.
Man Of Letters looks a good bet in the Sharp Minds Call 0870 90 80 121Handicap.
ALL the twenty-first century instruments agree that in this cybernetic age that quaint Victorian artefact, that wily old literary bird, the Man of Letters, has virtually joined the inept dodo and misfortunate great auk, along with the woolly mammoth and the muffin-man, in the categories of extinction.
Malvasia (1616-1693) was a Bolognese lawyer and man of letters, who carefully researched the lives of these artists, collecting and publishing primary sources and gathering anecdotal information from eyewitnesses, weaving these into rivetingly detailed biographical narratives.
The 65-year-old claimed the London Evening Standard's column: "Alan Clark's Secret Political Diary" was damaging his reputation as a serious historian and man of letters.
The contingency of his death, even as he was preparing the materials for the latest edition of Sancho's Letters, reflects the enduring fascination this remarkable African man of letters, avid reader and informed commentator, bon vivant and shopkeeper held over Edwards's imagination.
Barclay was a well-traveled cosmopolitan man of letters. His Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon (1603-07; Euphormio's Satyricon), a severe social satire filled with villains and rogues, contributed to the later development of the picaresque novel.