A literal syntax or a literal is just an object that was created using a dedicated syntax built into the language instead of using the normal syntax for object creation (whatever that is).
Here I create a literal array:
NSArray* a = @[@"Hello", @"World"];
Which is, for all intents and purposes equivalent to this:
NSArray* a = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"Hello", @"World", nil];
The first is called a literal because the @[] syntax is built into the language for creating arrays, in the same way that the @"..." syntax is built in for creating NSStrings.