Actual; genuine; true; authentic; not imaginary, artificial, counterfeit, or factitious: as, real lace.Of genuine character; not pretended or pretending; unassumed or unassuming.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.Sincere; faithful; loyal.Relating to things, not to persons; not personal.In law, pertaining to or having the quality of things fixed or immovable. See real estate, etc., below.In English ecclesiastical law, an agreement made between the owner of lands and the parson or vicar, with consent of the ordinary, that such lands shall be discharged from payment of tithes, in consequence of other land or recompense given to the parson in lieu and satisfaction thereof. Also called composition of tithes.A distinction between real objects. The Scotists made subtle and elaborate definitions of this phrase.Land, including with it whatever by nature or artificial annexation inheres with it as a part of it or as the means of its enjoyment, as minerals on or in the earth, standing or running water, growing trees, permanent buildings, and fences. In this sense the term refers to those physical objects of ownership which are immovable.The ownership of or property in lands, etc.; any legal or equitable interest in lands, etc., except some minor, temporary, or inchoate rights which by the laws of most jurisdictions are deemed to be personal estate. “At common law, any estate in lands, etc., the date of the termination of which is not determined by or ascertainable from or at the date of the act which creates it, is real estate.” The line between the two classes of property is differently drawn in detail, according as the object of the law is to define what shall be taxed, or what shall go to the heir in case of intestacy as distinguished from what shall go through the administrator to the next of kin, or what shall come within the rules as to recording titles, or other purposes.A science which has a determinate reality for its object, and is conversant about existences other than forms of thought: in this sense, mathematics is not a real science.Synonyms and Real, Actual, Positive, veritable, substantial, essential. Real applies to that which certainly exists, as opposed to that which is imaginary or feigned: as, real cause for alarm; a real occurrence; a real person, and not a ghost or a shadow; real sorrow. Actual applies to that which is brought to be or to pass, as opposed to that which is possible, probable, conceivable, approximate, estimated, or guessed at. Actual has a rather new but natural secondary sense of present. Positive, from the idea of a thing's being placed, fixed, or established, is opposed to uncertain or doubtful.n. That which is real; a real existence or object; a reality.n. A realist.n. The real thing; the genuine article.Really; truly; very; quite.Royal; regal; royally excellent or splendid.n. A subsidiary silver coin and money of account in Spain and Spanish-American countries.n. The current real of Spain (real de vellon) is one quarter of the peseta or franc, and worth about 5 United States cents. The Mexican real, corresponding to the old Spanish real de plata, is one eighth of a dollar (Mexican peso), and reckoned at 12½ cents The latter coin, both Spanish and Mexican, circulated largely in the United States down to about 1850, being called a Spanish or Mexican shilling in New York, a levy (see levy, 1) in the South, etc.n. The big-eyed herring, or saury, Elops sauras.In mathematics, involving no unit for number but the primitive unit, 1.In geometry, appearing in a finite figure. For instance, any two coplanar circles oC and oA are said to intersect, but their intersection-points are real only if .In optics, opposed to virtual: as, a real image, one formed by the actual convergence of waves brought to a focus by an optical system, as distinguished from the virtual image formed where the geometrical extensions of a group of rays meet.n. In mathematics, a real number.
