Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Existing and not merely potential or possible. See Synonyms at real1.
- adj. Being, existing, or acting at the present moment; current.
- adj. Based on fact: an actual account of the accident.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Active; practical.
- In full existence; real; denoting that which not merely can be, but is: opposed to potential, apparent, constructive, and imaginary.
- Now existing; present: opposed to past and future: as, in the actual condition of affairs.
- An individual as containing in it species, or a species as containing in it genera; a metaphysical or formal whole. So actual parts.
- Synonyms Actual, Positive, etc. (see real), veritable, genuine, certain, absolute.
Wiktionary
- adj. Existing in act or reality, not just potentially; really acted or acting; occurring in fact
- adj. Factual, real, not just apparent or even false
- adj. In action at the time being; now existing.
- adj. obsolete Active, not passive
- adj. Used to emphasise a noun or verb, whether something is real or metaphorical.
- n. An actual, real one; notably.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Involving or comprising action; active.
- adj. Existing in act or reality; really acted or acting; in fact; real; -- opposed to
potential ,possible ,virtual ,speculative ,conceivable ,theoretical , ornominal - adj. In action at the time being; now exiting; present; as the
actual situation of the country. - n. (Finance), Cant Something actually received; real, as distinct from estimated, receipts.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. existing in act or fact
- adj. being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something
- adj. taking place in reality; not pretended or imitated
- adj. presently existing in fact and not merely potential or possible
- adj. being or existing at the present moment
Etymologies
- Middle English actual, actuel ("active"), from Old French actuel, actual, from Late Latin actualis ("active, practical"), from Latin actus ("act, action, performance"),, from agere ("to do; to act") + -alis ("-al"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, active, from Late Latin āctuālis, from Latin āctus, past participle of agere, to drive, do. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“We have the total waste of $225,496,741 and this, reduced to its actual significance, means that of the total actual terminations, 83.6 per cent. was _actual waste_ and only 16.4 per cent. legitimate terminations, while the great bulk of the last item of”
“Uses HTML:: Parser which is tolerant of unbalanced tags, so the actual may have unbalanced tags which will assert_html_matches ($expected, $actual, $message)”
“affairs; a military limited in size and scope to actual protection of U.S. territory and its population; tight rein on foreign military alliances; no participation in major conflicts without an *actual*”
“For Lewis, ˜actual™ is an indexical term: when I speak of the actual world, I refer to the world of which I am an inhabitant ” and so for any speaker who is “in” (who is a part of) any world.”
“Assistant U.S. Solicitor General Eric Feigin countered that, based on the context and history of the legislation, the phrase "actual damages" covers only out-of-pocket expenses.”
“In the term actual grace, actual does not mean "real" or "factual," but”
“The term actual term 'weblog' was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997 but the term”
“The distinction is well made by Griffin 1985 p. 185 between what he calls the actual world of real causal efficacy and the world as it appears to our sensory perception, especially vision.”
“And the defense secretary retraced what he called the actual history of how the U.S. got involved in Iraq”
“England and everyone on the courtroom listened to a speakerphone as Specialist Matthew Wisdom, a guard at Abu Ghraib, told of the night in November of last year when he witnessed what he called the actual abuse, the beatings.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘actual’.
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grade 3
ability, absorb, act, tive, actual, adopt, advantage, ambition, ancient, arrange, arctic, attitude and 125 more...
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EN - pronunciation fun
All words of the poem
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse <...abyss, ache, actual, advice, aerie, age, ague, aisles, alas, alien, alive, allowed and 406 more...
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Ayumi G3
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 128 more...
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EU Buzz - EN words misused by the EU
A list based on http://ec.europa.eu/translation/english/guidelines/document...
actor, actual, adequate, agenda, agent, aids, allow, anglo-saxon, articulate, assist, axis, attestation and 77 more...
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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Words that start with A
alphabet, alligator, ate, actual, annual, activity, analyze, ability, astronaut, add, ape, aches and 20 more...
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Word List Level RED 1-40
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 28 more...
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Word List Level RED 1-40
absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advince, ambition, ancient, approach, arrange and 28 more...
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Word List - Level Red 1-40
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 28 more...
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Grade 3
Ability, absorb, ability, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient and 26 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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Aeonn's Words
discombobulation, dank, crass, abolishment, quite, ubiquitous, crank, catapult, sponge, click, queer, irish and 124 more...
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the a list
self-explanatory...
abort, able, about, addiction, absence, annotated, actual, accelerate, acidity, accolades, accomplish, accompany and 57 more...
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faux amis
Words which mean something different in another language.
gift, rat, handy, puff, mist, bald, bad, tripper, qualm, slip, fast, art and 57 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for actual.
sarra ev'rything is satisfactual! Mar 11, 2011