IN REALITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does in reality mean? 

• IN REALITY (adverb)
  The adverb IN REALITY has 1 sense:

1. used to imply that one would expect the fact to be the opposite of that stated; surprisingly

  Familiarity information: IN REALITY used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IN REALITY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Used to imply that one would expect the fact to be the opposite of that stated; surprisingly

Synonyms:

actually; in reality

Context example:

people who seem stand-offish are in reality often simply nervous

 Context examples 

How was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I always DID feel as if this man were finding me out?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In reality, this was the act of classification.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

In reality the bird was the willow-wren.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

In reality, the stellar pair Kepler 35A and B host a planet called Kepler 35b, a giant planet about eight times the size of Earth, with an orbit of 131.5 Earth days.

(Earth-Sized 'Tatooine' Planets Could Be Habitable, NASA)

But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It was not in reality a very stiff task, though there were moments which made my hair bristle upon my head.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In reality, he was attempting to warn me to throw my ashes over the lee side.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Yet how different now the source of her inquietude from what it had been then—how mournfully superior in reality and substance!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her instead of his brother.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He recoiled from side to side between the various objects and multiplied the hazards that in reality lodged only in his mind.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)