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pragmatic

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Practical and realistic rather than idealistic.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pragmatik

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹæɡˈmætɪk

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Practical, concerned with making decisions and actions that are useful in practice, not just theory.

  2. Philosophical; dealing with causes, reasons, and effects, rather than with details and circumstances; said of literature.

noun

  1. A public decree.

  2. A man of business.

  3. A busybody.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Practical, concerned with making decisions and actions that are useful in practice, not just theory.

Used this way, pragmatic is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Academic writing

Nearby words

  • pragmatical , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

pragmatic viewpragmatic theorypurely pragmaticpragmatic pointpragmatic groundspragmatic philosophypragmatic levelpragmatic function

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • pragmaticsnounPlural form

    The study of language use.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • pragmatismnounDerived noun · specialist

    The doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge and meaning and value.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • pragmatic sanctionnounCompound term

    An imperial decree that becomes part of the fundamental law of the land.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: practical

pragmaticalRarepractical

Word Forms

Pragmatic · Pragmatism · Pragmatically · Pragmatist

Where This Word Comes From

From Greek 'pragmatikos', meaning relating to fact or action, from 'pragma' (a deed).

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.