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realistic

adjective

Simple meaning

About the representation of objects, actions or conditions as they actually are or were.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

reeuhlistik

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ɹiəˈlɪstɪk

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. Relating to the representation of objects, actions or conditions as they actually are or were.

  2. Expressed or represented as being accurate, practicable, or not idealistic.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Relating to the representation of objects, actions or conditions as they actually are or were.

Used this way, realistic 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
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

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

More ways to use realistic

  • “A realistic description.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

realistic viewrealistic picturerealistic assessmentrealistic fictionrealistic appraisalrealistic modelrealistic novel

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: relating to the representation of objects or actions

Antonyms

Sense: relating to the representation of objects or actions

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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.