real

real, actual, true, and their derivative nouns reality, actuality, truth are often interchangeable in general, as distinct from technical philosophical or critical, language without marked loss when they mean correspondent to or what is correspondent to all the facts known and know- able; thus, one may say the real, or the actual, or the true state of affairs in the foregoing sense without evident and inherent difference in meaning. The terms are also often used interchangeably, but with distinct loss in clearness and precision, when their common implication is merely that of having or constituting substantial objective existence.

Real, in this more inclusive sense, implies genuineness, or correspondence between what the thing appears or pretends to be and what it is

{

this is a real diamond

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{

the British sovereign has little real power

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{

he has a real interest in art

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{

to know the difference between real and sham enjoyment— Shaw

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Actual emphasizes occurrence or manifest existence often in contrast with possible or theoretical or expected occurrence or existence; it is applied to what has emerged into the sphere of action or fact and is inapplicable to abstractions

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actual events

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{

give me an actual instance of the workings of this law

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{

the actual tests of the new airplane are yet to be made

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{

sculpture and painting are not . . . capable of actual movement, but they suggest movement— Binyon

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{

I'm no judge of the feelings of actual or prospective parents— Rose Macaulay

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{

the possible way—I am far from asserting it was the actual way—in which our legendary Socrates arose— Ellis

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True implies conformity either to what is real or to what is actual. If the former is intended, the term presupposes a standard, a pattern, a model, a technical definition, or a type by which what is true is determined

{

a true Christian

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{

the ladybug is not a true bug, but a beetle

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{

the whale is not a true fish, but a mammal

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{

in the seventh and eighth centuries there were no true kings of England— Malone

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{

the true re-finement . . . that in art . . . comes only from strength— Wilde

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When true stresses conformity to what is actual, it presupposes the test of correspondence to what exists in nature or to all the facts known and knowable

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true sidereal time

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{

run true to type

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{

a true story

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the true version of a story

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{

fiction is truer than history, because it goes beyond the evidence— Forster

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Analogous words: being, existing or existent, subsisting or subsistent (see corresponding verbs at BE): *certain, necessary, inevitable

Antonyms: unreal: apparent (sense 2): imaginary