real thing
- noun
- When I finally saw the masterpiece in person, I knew I was looking at the real thing.
AI is of course, a real thing, and it's not really all that new.
- AI is of course, a real thing, and it's not really all that new.
- I, I, for me, consciousness is a real thing.
- I like the fact that it is almost a real thing.
- So it's like there there is a very real thing to be faced with.
- And and then really investigated the real things that were hard for me to see and.
- And it's, you know, maybe it's good because only real things get promoted to the next stage.
- And we are DNA is a real thing, clearly, right?
- See, what we do is here, the real thing is we hate toddlers.
- It's very important to have machinery for recognizing real things, and real things have features.
Examples
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So if this is the real thing, does this deserve some amount of attention?
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Well, it certainly smells like the real thing.
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And then tomorrow we'll actually do the real thing, the real thing, the real thing.
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It's nice to meet the real thing.
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In my opinion it's the real thing.
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Decided it was time to try the real thing.
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Looks like the real thing.
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This is the real thing, my boy.
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Well, save up and buy the real thing when you're ready.
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Being a part of the posse was the most real thing that had ever happened to me.
Fiction book (1997)
Synonyms
A person or thing that is the original and not a copy
The original thing and not a copy
Antonyms
How Genuine
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'genuine; authentic' is directly and compositionally derived from 'real' (genuine) + 'thing' (object/entity), so the phrase denotes an item that is actually genuine. This adjective+noun pattern is straightforward, non-metaphorical, and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
The phrase real thing comes from markets where a seller would point to the original product and call it the real thing to show it was not a copy. That's why today it means 'genuine' or exactly what you expect.