Word.ws English Dictionary

for real life

for real life prepositional phrase: synonym of in reality, occurring in real life as opposed to play or make believe.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (informal) Synonym of in reality, occurring in real life as opposed to play or make believe.
    • Sure, letting the neighbourhood kids set up a doctor's surgery in your loungeroom can end in chaos and crocodile attacks (as in the episode, The Doctor). But when Bingo goes to hospital for real life, the neighbours are at the ready with healing help (episode: Bumpy and the Wise Old Wolfhound).2020 January 17, Mary Bolling, “What parents can keep learning from Bluey”, in Australian Broadcasting Corporation
    Synonyms:
    in reality, occurring in real life as opposed to play or make believe
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see for, real life.

Synonyms of for real life

  • in reality
  • occurring in real life as opposed to play or make believe

Origin of for real life

Perhaps a Blend of for real + real life. Popularised by the 2018 Australian animated children's TV series Bluey, but attested earlier.

Questions about for real life

What does for real life mean?
For real life means synonym of in reality, occurring in real life as opposed to play or make believe.
What part of speech is for real life?
For real life is a prepositional phrase.

Words near for real life in the dictionary

  1. for openers
  2. for Pete's sake
  3. for pity's sake
  4. for real
  5. for real and for true
  6. for real life
  7. for reals
  8. for realsies
  9. for reasons
  10. for rent
  11. for sake of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: for real life (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-for real life.wav.

Cite this entry: “for real life.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/for_real_life. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.