Other forms: realities
Reality is the world as it actually is, whatever anybody believes about it. Face reality, the reality of the situation, in reality.
In reality is the standard connector for correcting a false impression, and it is more forceful than actually. The plural realities means the hard facts of a situation: the realities of running a farm. Two compounds are everywhere now: reality television, meaning unscripted programmes about real people, and virtual reality, meaning a computer-generated world. Note reality check, which means a reminder of how things actually stand, usually unwelcome.
1nounrealityThe world as it actually is.
“The plan collided with reality within a fortnight.”
synonyms: actuality, fact
2nountrueThe true situation, as against what is claimed.
“In reality nobody had read the report.”
3nounhardThe hard practical facts of something.
“The realities of the job are not in the advertisement.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
reality is what actually exists.
Latin realis comes from res, a thing — the same root as republic, which is the public thing, and rebus. Reality is thing-ness, and the abstract noun was coined in the Middle Ages when philosophers needed a word for what exists independently of being thought about.
French
réalité
English, today
reality
From French réalité. From French réalité (“quality of being real”), from Middle French realité (“property, possession”), from Medieval Latin reālitās, from Latin reālis (“real”), equivalent to real + ity. Recorded since 1550 as a legal term in the sense of “fixed property” (compare real estate, a doublet of realty); the sense “real existence” is attested from 1647. c.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA