real

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“

We let slip the ideal for what we call the real, and the golden dreams vanish while we clutch at phantoms: we speed along life's pathway, counting to the full the sixty minutes of every hour, yet the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.

—The Roadmender

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American Heritage Dictionary (20)

adjective Being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verifiable existence: real objects; a real illness.
adjective True and actual; not imaginary, alleged, or ideal: real people, not ghosts; a film based on real life.
adjective Of or founded on practical matters and concerns: a recent graduate experiencing the real world for the first time.

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Century Dictionary (58)

Actual; genuine; true; authentic; not imaginary, artificial, counterfeit, or factitious: as, real lace. I waked, and found Before mine eyes all real, as the dream Had lively shadow'd. Milton, P. L., viii. 310. Homer tells us that the blood of the gods is not real blood, but only something like it. Addison, Spectator, No. 275. The hatred of unreality was uppermost with Carlyle; the love of what is real with Emerson. O. W. Holmes, Emerson, iv. It is probable that the American inventor of the first anæsthetic has done more for the real happiness of mankind than all the moral philosophers from Socrates to Mill. Lecky, Europ. Morals, I. 91. The Teutonic words are all of them real words, words which we are always wanting. E. A. Freeman, Amer. Lects., p. 163.
Of genuine character; not pretended or pretending; unassumed or unassuming. Phœbe's presence made a home about her. … She was real! Hawthorne, Seven Gables, ix. Real kings hide away their crowns in their wardrobes, and affect a plaiu and poor exterior. Emerson, Works and Days.
Specifically, in philosophy, existing in or pertaining to things, and not words or thought merely; being independent of any person's thought about the subject; possessing characters independently of the attribution of them by any individual mind or any number of minds; not resulting from the mind's action: opposed to imaginary or intentional. Real differs from actual, inasmuch as what is only in germ or in posse, in so far as it has a power of developing into a definite actuality, is real, and independent of what we may think about it. Real objects are either external to the mind, when they are independent altogether of our thought, or they are internal, when they depend upon thought, but not upon thought about them. The term real (realis), though always importing the existent, is used in various significations and oppositions. … 1. As denoting existence, in contrast to the nomenclature of existence—the thing as contradistinguished from its name. Thus we have definitions and divisions real, and definitions and divisions nominal or verbal. 2. As expressing the existent as opposed to the non-existent—a something in contrast to a nothing. In this sense the diminutions of existence, to which reality in the following significations is counterposed, are all real. 3. As denoting material or external, in contrast to mental, spiritual, or internal, existence. This meaning is improper. … 4. As synonymous with actual; and this as opposed to potential, as opposed to possible existence. 5. As denoting absolute or irrespective, in opposition to phænomenal or relative, existence; in other words, as denoting things in themselves and out of relation to all else, in contrast to things in relation to, and as known by, intelligences, like men, who know only under the conditions of plurality and difference. In this sense, which is rarely employed and may be neglected, the real is only another term for the unconditioned or absolute—το\ο+ντωςο+ν. 6. As indicating existence considered as a subsistence in nature (ens extra animam, ens naturæ), it stands counter to an existence considered as a representation in thought. In this sense, reale, in the language of the older philosophy (Scholastic, Cartesian, Gassendian), as applied to esse or ens, is opposed to intentionale, notionale, conceptibile, imaginarium, rationis, cognitionis, in anima, in intellectu, prout cognitum, ideale, etc.; and corresponds with a parte rei as opposed to a parte intellectus, with subjectivum as opposed to objectivum, with proprium, principale, and fundamentale as opposed to vicarium, with materiale as opposed to formale, and with formale in seipso and entitativum as opposed to representativum, etc. Under this head, in the vacillating language of our more recent philosophy, real approximates to, but is hardly convertible with, objective, in contrast to subjective in the signification there prevalent. 7. In close counection with the sixth meaning, real, in the last place, denotes an identity or difference founded on the conditions of the existence of a thing in itself, in contrast to an identity or difference founded only on the relation or point of view in which the thing may be regarded by the thinking subject. In this sense it is opposed to logical or rational, the terms being here employed in a peculiar meaning. Thus a thing which really (re) or in itself is one and indivisible may logically (ratione) by the mind be considered as diverse or plural. Sir W. Hamilton, Reid's Works, Note B, § 1, 5, foot-note. Ideas of substances are real when they agree with the existence of things. Locke, Human Understanding, II. xxx. 5. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly. Lamb, Artificial Comedy. For the first time the ideal social compact was real. Emerson, Hist. Discourse at Concord.

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Examples (39)

This is a strategy that is rapidly running out of steam and has created a dangerous inflation in Chinese real-estate and stock prices that is unlikely to end well. — Mises Dailies
Minus the Hollywood bravado, games that merge the virtual with the real could be the next entertainment revolution, helped by European researchers. — innovations-report
"You know, statements out of the blue - statements like this are what I call a real bad leading indicator that Geithner's time, days may be numbered," Kudlow said. — NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias
But it's pretty clear that racism - real or alleged - isn't the real issue. — The Corner
British woman describes investment in Bulgarian real estate as nightmare Lindner Immobile Management: Investors lose 200m annually in Bulgaria — SofiaEcho RSS feed

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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new · actual · serious

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (8)

American Heritage Dictionary (3)

Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin reālis, from Latin rēs, thing; see rē- in Indo-European roots.
Spanish, royal, real, from Latin rēgālis, royal, from rēx, rēg-, king; see reg- in Indo-European roots.
Portuguese, royal, real, from Latin rēgālis, royal; see real².

Century Dictionary (5)

from Middle English real, reall, from Old French real, reel, French réel =Provencal Spanish Portuguese real =Italian reale, from Middle Latin realis, belonging to the thing itself (in the disputes of the Nominalists and Realists), from Latin res, a thing; perhaps allied to Sanskrit √ rā, give. Hence realize, realization, realism, realist, reality, etc.; also, from Latin res, English rebus, republic, republican, etc.
from real, a.
from Middle English real, riall, rial, ryall, ryell, roial, royal, regal, from Anglo-French reial, roial, Old French real, French réal (used only in certain antique locutions), =Spanish Portuguese real =Italian reale, regale, from Latin regalis, regal, kingly, royal: see royal and regal, doublets of real. Cf. leal, loyal, legal, similarly related.
Also rial; from Spanish real, a coin so called, literally ‘royal,’ from Latin regalis, regal, royal: see real, royal, regal.
Cuban, perhaps from Spanish real, royal: see real, real. Cf. Old French real, a kind of sturgeon.

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/ˈriəl/

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