Word.ws English Dictionary

realia

/ɹeɪˈɑːlɪə/

realia noun: objects from real life or from the real world, as opposed to theoretical constructs or fabricated examples.

Noun

realia pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Objects from real life or from the real world, as opposed to theoretical constructs or fabricated examples.
    • It might be possible, for example, to work backwards from the known realia of Visigothic Spain.2011, Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms, Penguin, published 2012, page 28
  2. (plural, plural-only) Words and expressions for culture-specific material elements.
  3. (plural, plural-only, libraries) Physical objects in a library collection that do not fit into traditional categories of media, whose media are the objects themselves, as opposed to their informational content, such as artifacts, tools, memorabilia, and naturally-occurring specimens.
    • "We acquire entire collections of materials for research purposes," explains Saundra Taylor, curator of manuscripts at the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington. "That inevitably includes something that's not books or manuscripts."2002 April 14, Lev Grossman, “Catalog This”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 21 May 2021, Education Life, page 26

Origin of realia

From Late Latin realia, neuter plural of realis (“real”).

Words that rhyme with realia

Questions about realia

What does realia mean?
Realia means objects from real life or from the real world, as opposed to theoretical constructs or fabricated examples.
What part of speech is realia?
Realia is a noun.
How do you pronounce realia?
Realia is pronounced /ɹeɪˈɑːlɪə/ (UK).

Words near realia in the dictionary

  1. realgar wine
  2. realgars
  3. realgymnasium
  4. realgymnasiums
  5. Reali
  6. realia
  7. realienate
  8. realienated
  9. realienates
  10. realienating
  11. realienation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: realia (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-realia.wav.

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