realistic

1 willing to see things as they really are and deal with them sensibly <high schoolers who need to be more realistic in their career choices, as so few people end up as rock stars> Synonyms down-to-earth, earthy, hardheaded, matter-of-fact, practical, pragmatic (also pragmatical) Related Words idealless, philistine, utilitarian; commonsensical, grounded, levelheaded, logical, no-nonsense, rational, reasonable, sane, sensible, sober, sobersided, sound; bottom-line, hard, hard-boiled, hard-edged, tough-minded, unromantic, unsentimental; cynical, disillusioned, misanthropic, pessimistic; distrustful, mistrustful, skeptical, suspicious Near Antonyms fanciful, fantastic (also fantastical), imaginative; romantic, sentimental; cheerful, optimistic, rose-colored; trustful, trusting, unsuspicious; half-baked, illogical, insane, irrational, unreasonable; theoretical (also theoretic) Antonyms blue-sky, idealistic, impractical, unrealistic, utopian, visionary

2 closely resembling the object imitated <those special effects look really realistic—I'd never guess they were all computer-generated> Synonyms lifelike, living, naturalistic (also naturalist), near, photo-realistic, natural, three-dimensionalRelated Words alike, like, matching, similar, verisimilar; akin, analogous, approximate, comparable, resembling; accurate, close, faithful, true; compelling, convincing; expressive, graphic (also graphical), gritty, vividNear Antonyms dissimilar, off, unalike, unlike; incomparable, unmatched; contrasted, contrasting, different, disparate; fake, mock, phony (also phoney), shamAntonyms nonnatural, nonrealistic, unnatural, unrealistic