Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Relating or adhering to facts; literal.
- adj. Straightforward or unemotional: "the matter-of-fact tones in which the local guides describe the history of the various places” ( New York Times).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Consisting of or pertaining to facts; not fanciful, imaginative, or ideal; ordinary; commonplace: applied to things.
- Adhering to facts; not given to wander beyond realities; unimaginative; prosaic: applied to persons.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Adhering to facts; not turning aside from absolute realities; not fanciful or imaginative; commonplace; dry.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. concerned with practical matters
- adj. not fanciful or imaginative
Etymologies
- From matter + of + fact. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Just as the form and color of the stop sign seem matter-of-fact yet are linked to rich visual cultures, so too is its verbal STOP deceptively simple.”
“The matter-of-fact relaying of the rise and fall of the Raj the British rule recalls the grade-school history textbooks that gave the barest outline of historical events but withheld the extremes of human experience that were the fallout of those events, to be revealed to us when we were older and could better handle the ugly truth.”
“I just didn't like the atmosphere, or the matter-of-fact staff.”
“Next to knowing the mind of an anarchist, perhaps the greatest value of this book lies in its bald, matter-of-fact narration of the unthinkable cruelty and lunatic management of our prisons.”
Jack London's Nonfiction Collection of Unpublished Book Forwards
“It is to be a cold, prosaic, matter-of-fact business proposition.”
“Her cool, matter-of-fact speech belied her — or so Daylight thought, looking at her perturbed feminineness, at the rounded lines of her figure, the breast that deeply rose and fell, and at the color that was now excited in her cheeks.”
“But they made up for it, discussing and comparing the more loathsome features of their disease in the most cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way.”
“Without hesitation and in a matter-of-fact tone, he said that management was confident that 30 to 40% of branches would comply.”
“S.G. Browne has created a very entertaining, tongue-in-check and matter-of-fact novel about zombies and how they would be treated by the human race who has done so well in the past with anything that is different.”
“Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament” by S. G. Browne (Broadway, 2009) « The BookBanter Blog
“So on Thursday night, after Haley Reinhart's surprisingly unemotional elimination — which was very matter-of-fact compared to the shock and sorrow that accompanied last week's ouster of rocker James Durbin — Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina flanked stage manager Debbie Williams, who tossed the coin onto the stage.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘matter-of-fact’.
-
Hyphen Nation
Terms with multiple hyphens, such as rent-a-crowd. Not intended to be a see-how-many-words-one-can-string-together-with-hyphens-used-adjectively sort of list.
much-talked-of, vis-à-vis, tête-à-tête, rope-a-dope, will-o'-the-wisp, dick-a-tuesday, will-in-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern, jack-with-a-lantern, ear-to-ear, whack-a-mole, no-man's-land and 205 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for matter-of-fact.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.