noun
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true existence; reality
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(sometimes plural) a fact or condition that is real
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of actuality
1350–1400; Middle English actualite < Medieval Latin āctuālitās. See actual, -ity
Explanation
Actuality is the quality of being real or true. You might wish you could make friends with a bear, but in actuality, you should definitely not climb into the grizzly enclosure at the zoo. Use this word for anything that's objectively factual — you may be terrified of flying, but in actuality it's much safer than riding in a car. Before it meant "state of being real," the word actuality was defined as "power," from the Latin root actus, or "doing." The meaning had shifted by the 1670s, first to "existing conditions," from the French actuel, "up to date," and then to the current definition.
Vocabulary lists containing actuality
Novel Study: American Born Chinese, Pages 85–233
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In actuality, data exists on computer servers, its components “as tangible as gold bullion.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
“In actuality, Stagg came onboard in about November 1943 and got to Southwark House a few months earlier,” Maras says.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
The five years, in actuality, starts from the point at which United get the green light to put spades in the ground.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026
In actuality, they’ll be weakening one of the great checks against the actual threat—emboldening the real danger that is sitting, and amassing further power, within.
From Slate ● May 15, 2025
But in actuality, the wrestler on the bubble won almost eight out often matches against his 8-6 opponent.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
His contribution, titled “The Nobel Returns Home,” celebrates how “the Arts — and literature in particular — are well and thriving” in Africa, “a sturdy flag waved above depressing actualities by a young, confident generation.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2021
The appearance of unity is easier than the messy actualities.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 31, 2019
To be truly useful, an analogy must be precise not only in its actualities but in its potentialities.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2017
She despises nearly all public art, for its obliviousness of the actualities of public life.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 15, 2014
The keen actualities fade and become the shadows; sense of one's own life and vanity and disappointment slips away; one is to enjoy a transmigration of soul for a brief time.
From Turns about Town by Robert Cortes Holliday
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
