real-world

adjective

ˈrē(-ə)l-ˈwər(-ə)ld 

: existing or occurring in reality : drawn from or drawing on actual events or situations : real-life

a real-world example

… the complex relationship between a word and the real-world thing it labels.

—Jean Aitchison

Digital objects aren't bound by the same constraints as real-world objects—that is, broadly speaking, the whole point of digital objects—but they're often made to look like real-world objects anyway.

—Lev Grossman

… combine the rigors of academics with the soothing realities of real-world applications.

—Ricardo Bilton

The paintings are essentially abstract, but they don't feel abstract. They feature, besides passages of figurative drawing, a real-world aura …

—Peter Schjeldahl

Examples of real-world in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Offer regular training, not just on phishing emails and password hygiene, but on the real-world consequences of data leaks. —Troy Batterberry, Forbes.com, 26 June 2025

People were skeptical, saying the timeline was too aggressive and underestimated real-world limits like hardware, energy, and regulatory bottlenecks. —Sharon Goldman, Fortune, 26 June 2025

Robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, former head of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab and a founder of iRobot, knows from decades of building real-world applications from frontier technologies, that to be widely adopted, even the most clever tools must leave room for humans. —Gabriel Snyder, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 June 2025

Launch a compliant version — NA, functional or THC-free — to gather real-world feedback while the laws catch up. —Joe Chura, Rolling Stone, 25 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for real-world

• lifeworld
• unfurled
• curled
• furled
• hurled
• knurled
• swirled
• twirled
• whirled
• whorled
• world
• netherworld