real life

1. 1.

   the practical world as opposed to the academic world

   “a good consultant must have a lot of experience in the real world”

   Synonymsreal world

   Broaderworld

Questions about real life

What does real life mean?

real life means "the practical world as opposed to the academic world".

What is another word for real life?

Close synonyms include real world. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is real life a common word?

real life is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.