Word Confusion: Real versus Reel

Plural for the noun: reals, reais ²

Plural for the noun: reals
Gerund: reeling

Third person present verb: reels
Past tense or past participle: reeled
Present participle: reeling

Not imagined or supposed

• Used to emphasize the significance or seriousness of a situation or circumstance
• [Philosophy] Relating to something as it is, not merely as it may be described or distinguished

[Of a substance or thing] Not imitation or artificial

Genuine

• True or actual
• [Attrib.; of a person or thing] Rightly so called
• Proper

[Attrib.; informal] Complete

[Used for emphasis] Utter

[Attrib.] Adjusted for changes in the value of money

Assessed by purchasing power

[Law] Of fixed property, i.e., land and buildings, as distinct from personal property

[Mathematics; of a number or quantity] Having no imaginary part

[Optics; of an image] Of a kind in which the light that forms it actually passes through it

Not virtual

Adverb:
[As submodifier; informal; chiefly North American] Really ¹

• Very

Noun:
Real number ¹

True

The real

Something that actually exists, as a particular quantity

Reality in general

[Slang; for real] Not as a test or trial

• In earnest

The basic monetary unit of Brazil since 1994, equal to 100 centavos ²

• A former coin and monetary unit of various Spanish-speaking countries

• A length of something wound onto a reel
• A part of a movie
• A device for winding and unwinding a line as required

A lively Scottish or Irish folk dance

• A piece of music for a reel, typically in simple or duple time
• Short for Virginia reel

Verb, intransitive:
Lose one’s balance and stagger or lurch violently

• Feel very giddy, disoriented, or bewildered, typically as a result of an unexpected setback
• [With adverbial of direction] Walk in a staggering or lurching manner, especially while drunk

Dance a reel

Verb, transitive:
[reel something in] Wind a line onto a reel by turning the reel

• Bring something attached to a line, especially a fish, toward one by turning a reel and winding in the line

A story drawing on real events.

Her many illnesses, real and imaginary, have affected all our lives.

There is a real danger of civil war.

The competitive threat from overseas is very real.

“They think there can be nothing real — or at any rate nothing known to be real except minds and their thoughts and feelings” (Russell).

The earring was presumably real gold.

His real name is James.

This isn’t my real reason for coming.

He’s my idea of a real man.

Jamie is my only real friend.

The tour turned out to be a real disaster.

Real incomes had fallen by 30 percent.

It was an increase in real terms of 11.6 percent.

He lost nearly all of his real holdings.

A complex number is a number that can be expressed in the form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is the imaginary unit, that satisfies the equation i² = −1 (Complex).

Since we can form an image on a piece of paper, we call this kind of image a real image (Images).

Adverb:
My head hurts real bad.

You did a real nice job painting the house.

Noun:
John, thirteen is a real number.

You mean she dyed her hair green for real?

No, baby, the cows are real.

There are theories beyond the realm of the real.

Is she for real?

You think you can get into Harvard with those grades? Get real.

You know it costs 150 reales, Ruiz.

Did you find that reel of copper wire I was looking for?

In the final reel, he is transformed from unhinged sociopath into local hero.

Wait’ll you see my new fishing reel.

I don’t know how to dance any reels!?

He played us a reel on his fiddle.

Verb, intransitive:
He punched Connolly in the ear, sending him reeling.

She proceeded to reel off in rapid Italian the various dishes of the day.

She reeled back against the van.

The unaccustomed intake of alcohol made my head reel.

The nationalist government is already reeling from 225 percent monthly inflation.

The two reeled out of the bar arm in arm.

The dancers went reeling across the floor.

Verb, transitive:
He struck and reeled in a good perch.

The old sailor reeled off one story after another.

He reeled that bad boy in.

1. Late Middle English as a legal term meaning relating to things, especially real property, from the Anglo-Norman French, which is from the late Latin realis, from Latin res meaning thing.
2. An adjective used as a noun from the Portuguese and Spanish, literally royal.