Definition of "real" [re•al]

• 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. (adjective)
• Genuine and authentic; not artificial or spurious: real mink; real humility. (adjective)
• Being no less than what is stated; worthy of the name: a real friend. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It really hit me that these are * real* people, not the faux populists dished up by the GOP - real people of intelligence and substance."
• "But the underlying conceptualization is still Keynesian, meaning that consumption and investment functions are real, except for some randomness, and not based directly and explicitly on individual actors' decisions based on *perceived* wealth -- which may be very different from *real* wealth because of a lack of proper asset pricing models stabilizing asset valuations around equilibrium market prices."
• "Thus the realism/idealism controversy can be reconfigured as the controversy over whether the so-called ˜real world™ has the real or purely intentional mode of being."