Definition of "true-life" [true-life]

• Presenting conditions and especially human relationships accurately; true to life: a true-life romance. (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.

• "I agreed with Heidi Waleson's Sept. 13 review of SF Opera's premiere of Christopher Theofanidis's "Heart of a Soldier," based on a true-life account of a modern hero in Vietnam in 1965 and at the World Trade Center on 9/11."
• "They're underrepresented as heroines in true-life stories on the big screen as well."
• "Mark Wahlberg plays a boxer giving it one last shot in this true-life fable."