real thing

1. 1.

   informal usage attributing authenticity

   Synonymsreal McCoyreal stuff

   Broaderauthenticity

Questions about real thing

What does real thing mean?

real thing means "informal usage attributing authenticity".

What is another word for real thing?

Close synonyms include real McCoy, real stuff. 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 thing a common word?

real thing 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.