Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use real in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, adverb, noun

Real means true, genuine, not merely nominal or apparent. Example: “City hall has its place, but this pub is the real heart of the town.”

Examples of real by meaning

adjectiveTrue, genuine, not merely nominal or apparent.

  • City hall has its place, but this pub is the real heart of the town.
  • Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema.2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55

adjectiveGenuine, not artificial, counterfeit, or fake.

  • This is real leather.
  • Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly)

adjectiveGenuine, unfeigned, sincere.

  • These are real tears!
  • But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27

adjectiveActually being, existing, or occurring; not fictitious or imaginary.

  • a description of real life

adjectiveThat has objective, physical existence.

  • No one has ever seen a real unicorn.

adjectiveHaving been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation; measured in purchasing power (contrast nominal).

  • My dad calculated my family's real consumption per month.
  • What is the real GNP of this polity?

adjectiveRelating to immovable tangible property.

  • real estate; real property

adjectiveAbsolute, complete, utter.

  • This is a real problem.

More sentences with real

  • The whole crowd waited for him to deal a real humdinger.From the entry deal
  • Cantor’s “diagonal proof” shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable.From the entry uncountable
  • After years of debate over the best wine to serve at Thanksgiving, no real consensus has emerged.From the entry consensus
  • That gun’s not mine! It was planted there by the real murderer!From the entry plant
  • The metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas holds that all real beings have both essence and existence.From the entry metaphysics
  • This counterfeit watch looks like the real thing, but it broke a week after I bought it.From the entry counterfeit
  • The garden is a real picture at this time of year.From the entry picture
  • He’s a real history buff. He knows everything there is to know about the civil war.From the entry buff
  • Ha, you believe the moon is real? That's just what they want you to think.From the entry they
  • My kid sister is a real mouth; she never shuts up.From the entry mouth
  • We want to bust the myth that real men don't eat quiche.From the entry bust
  • Jim has a real complex about working for a woman boss.From the entry complex
  • Let's split this scene and see if we can find a real party.From the entry split
  • All this talk about human rights is clouding the real issue.From the entry cloud
  • Statisticians often define a recession as negative real GDP growth during two consecutive quarters.From the entry recession
  • There was some doubt as to who the child's real father was.From the entry doubt
  • He's nominally president, but he does not have any real power.From the entry power
  • He was a real mountain of a man, standing seven feet tall.From the entry mountain
  • The house of delegates in apartheid-era South Africa lacked any real voting power.From the entry delegate
  • Travelling to work in the rush hour is a real drag.From the entry drag
  • Apologizing for losing your temper, even though you were badly provoked, showed real class.From the entry class
  • The set of complex numbers constitutes a field extension of degree 2 over the real numbers.From the entry degree
  • They failed to find any investors for the construction of new real estate on the north side.From the entry real estate
  • The real numbers can be extended to a wheel, as can any commutative ring.From the entry wheel
  • Maybe that's how it works in TV-land, but not in the real world.From the entry land
  • His first letter was not a real offer, but an attempt to determine interest.From the entry offer
  • Some real breakthroughs were made at the summit, but only far from the official diplomatic table.From the entry table
  • Practical lighting can help sell the illusion that the film is a real situation.From the entry practical

Meaning of real

  1. adjective True, genuine, not merely nominal or apparent.
  2. adjective Genuine, not artificial, counterfeit, or fake.
  3. adjective Genuine, unfeigned, sincere.

Full definition of real

Questions about real in a sentence

How do you use real in a sentence?
Real is used as an adjective, adverb and noun. For example: “City hall has its place, but this pub is the real heart of the town.”
What is a short sentence with real?
“These are real tears!”
What does real mean?
Real means true, genuine, not merely nominal or apparent.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: real (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use real in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/real. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.