كل لفظ وضعه واضع اللغة بإزاء شيء فهو حقيقة له
Every word assigned by the language community to a thing is literal for that thing.
Wadʿ means the conventional assignment of a word to a meaning. The word directly indicates that meaning without requiring a transfer to a different sense. “Rajul” for an adult man and “shajarah” for a tree illustrate this principle.
Literalness is not limited to something physically present before the speaker. The question is which meaning the word has been assigned in the language. Using it for that established meaning is literal even where the meaning has many instances.