📒 actually existing or happening and not imagined or pretended
- a real danger/risk/threat/concern
- All the characters are based on real people.
- It wasn't a ghost; it was a real person.
📒 not false or artificial
- Are those real flowers?
- real leather
- Pinocchio wanted to be a real live boy.
📒 actual or true, rather than what appears to be true
- Tell me the real reason.
- The real story is even more amazing.
- Judy Garland's real name was Frances Ethel Gumm.
📒 having all the important qualities that it should have to deserve to be called what it is called
- She never had any real friends at school.
- his first real kiss
- I had no real interest in politics.
📒 used to emphasize a state or quality
- He looks a real idiot.
- This accident could have produced a real tragedy.
- Her next play was a real contrast.
📒 when the effect of such things as price rises on the power of money to buy things is included in the sums
- Real wage costs have risen by 10 per cent in the past year.
- The real value of the country's exports has grown little since the 1970s.
- This represents a reduction of 5 per cent in real terms.
📒 what somebody claims it is or serious
- This is not a fire drill—it's for real.
- (North American English) He managed to convince voters that he was for real.
- I don’t think her tears were for real.
📒 used to tell somebody that they are behaving in a stupid or unreasonable way
📒 to act in an honest and natural way
📒 the person who really controls an organization, a country, etc. in contrast to the person who is legally in charge
- His assistant was thought to be the real power behind the throne.
📒 something that is what somebody claims it is and that has value, not a copy
- It's an American flying jacket, the real McCoy.
📒 actually what somebody claims that something is
- Are you sure it's the real thing (= love), not just infatuation?