matter-of-fact love

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Relating or adhering to facts; literal.
  • adjective Straightforward or unemotional.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Adhering to facts; not turning aside from absolute realities; not fanciful or imaginative; commonplace; dry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of, or relating to facts only; literal, realistic
  • adjective lacking emotion or colour

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective concerned with practical matters
  • adjective not fanciful or imaginative

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From matter + of + fact.

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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 English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • 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 English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • Without hesitation and in a matter-of-fact tone, he said that management was confident that 30 to 40% of branches would comply.

    Good News For Chinese Banks, Bad News For Reforms 2011

  • 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    Jack London's Nonfiction Collection of Unpublished Book Forwards 2010

  • 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 2010

  • 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.

    THE SPIKE 2010

  • "I just didn't like the atmosphere, or the matter-of-fact staff."

    Gastroschisis — Welsh 2010

  • It is to be a cold, prosaic, matter-of-fact business proposition.

    Chapter 22 2010

  • 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.

    Larissa Archer: Asian Art Museum's "Maharaja" Overlooks Crucial Cultural Questions in India Larissa Archer 2011

  • 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.

    Chapter XIII 2010

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