Realities

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The various states or conditions in which things exist ; the actual facts or truths about a situation or circumstance
2. Different modes of being or existence ; the true conditions or facts as they really are
3. The actual situations or environments that are experienced ; the genuine facts or realities that exist independent of perceptions

Etymology: "Realities" is the plural of "reality," which today usually means the conditions of actual life rather than what is imagined or wished for. The noun was first recorded in English in the mid-1500s, but not with that meaning. For its early decades it was a legal term for fixed property, the sense it still carries in the word "realty," a close relative that survives in property law. The abstract sense of real existence came later, attested from 1647, and it grew out of the same root. Medieval Latin "reālitās" was built from "reālis," meaning "real" or "relating to things," which in turn came from Latin "rēs," meaning "thing." So the word began with physical possessions and moved toward the idea of how things truly are. The plural form, which points to the concrete situations people face, is a later step still.

Synonyms: truths, facts, realities, existences, conditions

Antonyms: fantasies, illusions, deceptions, untruths, myths