The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word LITERARY
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
L
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T
E
R
A
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Y
More clues leading to the result LITERARY
- Suited to books read aloud, careless rubbish lacking substance?
- Scholarly American's volume found on a railway
- Actually preferring rapper's introduction to two lines in formal language
- Bookish volume of Poe fairly regularly overlooked
- Settled European artist extremely rarely interested in writing
- Computing bores rarely represented in books
- Learned Lima route overlooking home
- Lear’s wrong to bracket it with lines characteristic of scholarly writing
- Academic rarely moved to admit it
- Learned when playing Lear, one tragedy that’s not aged
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The straight part
We know that "characteristic of scholarly writing" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case characteristic of scholarly writing = literary.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does LITERARY mean?
LITERARY adjective- Relating to literature.
- Relating to writers, or the profession of literature.
- Knowledgeable of literature or writing.
- Appropriate to literature rather than everyday writing.
- Bookish.