Realising

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of becoming aware or understanding something ; the process of successfully achieving or accomplishing a goal or plan
2. The moment when awareness or comprehension dawns on someone ; the completion or fulfillment of an intended objective
3. The realization of a fact or truth entering the mind ; the attainment or bringing into existence of a desired outcome

Etymology: The verb "realise" is built from the adjective "real" and the suffix "-ise," and its sense of "making real" is the older one. Its path into English likely ran through French: the French "réaliser" meant "to make real" and also, in commerce, "to convert something into cash or assets." That financial sense is the one that shows up in the modern verb's second meaning, bringing a plan into actual being, which is exactly the sense in "realising a goal." The meaning of awareness, the dawning of understanding, developed later and grew from the idea of making something real in the mind. To realise a truth is to take an abstract fact and make it concrete for oneself, so the idea that a thought has become actual carries over into the idea of grasping something that was previously only half-known. Because "realising" is simply the verb in its continuous form, its story is the same as the verb's. The same verb can describe turning a dream into a finished project or the moment a person suddenly sees how things stand.

Synonyms: realizing, understanding, comprehending, grasping, apprehending

Antonyms: misunderstanding, overlooking, ignoring, neglecting, disregarding