Word.ws English Dictionary

irrealis

Syllables: ir·real·is/ɪɹiˈɑːlɪs/

irrealis adjective: inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact.

Adjective

irrealis (not comparable)

  1. Inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact.

Noun

irrealis (plural irrealises)

  1. An irrealis construct.
    • […] then it would make sense to view Australian past irrealises as TAM forms combining a modal stative predicate (conveying e.g. a capacity, expectation, or desire state) with a past imperfective content.2023, Kasia M. Jaszczolt, Understanding Human Time, page 170

Forms of irrealis

pluralirrealises

Origin of irrealis

Learned borrowing from New Latin irreālis (“intangible, immaterial”), from Latin in- (“un-: not”) + reālis (“real, material, composed of physical things”), from res (“thing”) + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”). Doublet of irreal.

Words formed from irrealis

Phrases with irrealis

Questions about irrealis

What does irrealis mean?
Irrealis means inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact.
What part of speech is irrealis?
Irrealis can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce irrealis?
Irrealis is pronounced /ɪɹiˈɑːlɪs/.

Words near irrealis in the dictionary

  1. Irrawaddi
  2. Irrawaddy
  3. Irrawaddy dolphin
  4. Irrawaddy dolphins
  5. irreal
  6. irrealis
  7. irrealis mood
  8. irrealis moods
  9. irrealisable
  10. irrealises
  11. irrealism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: irrealis (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.

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