Actuality

How to spell actuality

9 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce actuality

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does actuality mean?

1. nounThe state of being real or existing in fact, as opposed to what is merely possible or imagined.

Actuality in a sentence

• The project looked simple on paper, but in actuality it took three years to finish.

• The brochure promised a sea view, yet the actuality was a car park.

Where does actuality come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb agere, meaning 'to drive, to do, or to perform', whose past participle gave the noun actus, 'a doing' or 'an act'. From actus came the late Latin adjective actualis, meaning 'active' or 'practical', and from that the medieval Latin abstract noun actualitas, naming the quality of being active or real. English picked the word up in the late 1300s, partly through Old French actualite, originally with the sense of activity before it settled into the modern meaning of real existence as opposed to mere possibility. The same agere root branches out into a huge family of everyday words such as 'act', 'action', 'agent', and 'agile', which can help anchor the spelling. The trap in 'actuality' is the unstressed middle: the '-tu-' is pronounced like 'chu', and writers must remember the full '-ality' ending rather than a shorter form.

How the word is built

• actu- (from Latin actus: a doing, an act)
• -al (adjective)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)