irreal

From Latin irrealis, from in- (“un-: not”) + reālis (“real, material, tangible, composed of physical things”), from res (“thing”) + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”). Doublet of irrealis.

irreal (comparative more irreal, superlative most irreal)

1. (philosophy) Synonym of intangible, immaterial, not composed of things, having no concrete existence.
   • 2012, T. Dant, Television and the Moral Imaginary: Society through the Small Screen, →ISBN:

     'Irreal' objects draw on our previous sensual experience but have never existed; they are created through the spontaneous intentional operations of the imagination.

   • 2013, J. Mensch, The Question of Being in Husserl’s Logical Investigations, →ISBN, page 8:

     It is a shift to the ego conceived as irreal, as non-worldly.

   • 2014, J. Pike, P. Kelly, The Moral Geographies of Children, Young People and Food, →ISBN:

     The irreal spatiality of school dining rooms, including such things as décor, furnishings, modes of ordering, manner of queuing, ambience, 'feel', can also, as we have seen, actively limit these governmental ambitions.

   • 2015, Sarah Pink, Doing Sensory Ethnography, →ISBN:

     It is impossible to directly access the imaginations of others, to know precisely if and how an imagined 'irreal' future is felt by an individual or shared by a 'collective', or to know if one has shared it oneself.

• railer, rerail

• Rhymes: -al, -aw
• Hyphenation: ir‧re‧al

irreal m or f (plural irreais)

1. unreal (not real)

   Antonym: real

From ir- +‎ real.

• IPA^(key): /ireˈal/ [i.reˈal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: i‧rre‧al

irreal m or f (masculine and feminine plural irreales)

1. unreal

   Antonym: real

2. fantastic

   Synonym: fantástico

• “irreal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28