real-world

adjective

ˈrē(-ə)l-ˈwər(-ə)ld 

: existing or occurring in reality : drawn from or drawing on actual events or situations : real-life

a real-world example

… the complex relationship between a word and the real-world thing it labels.

—Jean Aitchison

Digital objects aren't bound by the same constraints as real-world objects—that is, broadly speaking, the whole point of digital objects—but they're often made to look like real-world objects anyway.

—Lev Grossman

… combine the rigors of academics with the soothing realities of real-world applications.

—Ricardo Bilton

The paintings are essentially abstract, but they don't feel abstract. They feature, besides passages of figurative drawing, a real-world aura …

—Peter Schjeldahl

Examples of real-world in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

City-Scale Digital Twins The digital twin concept involves creating virtual replicas, modeled using real-world data, in order to create simulations that can be used for planning and managing development. —Bernard Marr, Forbes, 9 Jan. 2025

To fill in the research gap, Babulal and his colleagues conducted a longitudinal study using real-world driving data. —Elizabeth Yuko, Health, 9 Jan. 2025

In real-world tests conducted in Halifax Harbour, the device produced up to 0.97 gallons of clean water daily, which was a record-breaking yield for passive floating solar stills. —Kurt Knutsson, Cyberguy Report, Fox News, 9 Jan. 2025

This remarkable improvement—from struggling with even the simplest fixes to successfully handling nearly three-quarters of the set of real-world coding tasks—suggests AI systems are rapidly gaining the ability to understand and modify complex software projects. —Garrison Lovely, TIME, 8 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined above