realist
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A philosopher who believes that universals are real and exist independently of anyone thinking of them.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
reeuhlistSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹiəlɪst
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A philosopher who believes that universals are real and exist independently of anyone thinking of them
One who believes in seeing things the way they really are, as opposed to how they would like them to be.
philosophy
An advocate of realism; one who believes that matter, objects etc. have real existence beyond our perception of them.
artliterature
An adherent of the realism movement; an artist who seeks to portray real everyday life accurately.
adjective
Eye dialect spelling of realest.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A philosopher who believes that universals are real and exist independently of anyone thinking of them
Used this way, realist is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.