Real

How to spell real

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce real

What does real mean?

1. adjectiveExisting in fact and not imagined, invented, or counterfeit; genuine.

Real in a sentence

• The diamond turned out to be real and not a clever imitation.

• There is a real risk that the project will run over budget.

Where does real come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Late Latin realis, meaning 'actual' or 'relating to a thing', which was built on the noun res, the everyday Latin word for a thing, a matter, or an affair. English took it in through Anglo-French in the fourteenth century, at first as a legal term describing property and rights attached to physical things, which is why we still speak of 'real estate' today. From that concrete legal sense it broadened to mean anything genuine, actual, or not imaginary. The same res root sits inside 'republic' (from res publica, literally 'the public thing') and inside 'rebus', a puzzle that spells words with pictures of things. The trap in spelling is purely the sound: real is pronounced exactly like reel, the spool, so writers must hold the meaning in mind to pick the right letters.

How the word is built

• real (from Latin res: thing, matter)
• -al (adjective suffix)

Words that sound like real

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• reel: A rotating cylinder or spool on which line, thread, film, or tape is wound.