pragmatic

comparative more pragmatic · superlative most pragmatic · alternative pragmatical · alternative pragmatick · alternative pragmatique

1. Practical, concerned with making decisions and actions that are useful in practice, not just theory.

   The sturdy furniture in the student lounge was pragmatic, but unattractive.

   2 more examples

   Nor indeed are these restrictions pragmatic in nature: i.e. the ill-formedness of the heed-sentences in (60) is entirely different in kind from the oddity of sentences like: (61) !That man will eat any car which thinks heʼs stupid which is purely pragmatic (i.e. lies in the fact that (61) describes the kind of bizarre situation which just doesnʼt happen in the world we are familiar with, where cars donʼt think, and people donʼt eat cars).

   1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 8, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 423

   Another increasing concern with both ideological and pragmatic elements related to the situation of wickerworkers.

   2013, Joong-Seop Kim, The Korean Paekjong Under Japanese Rule

   Synonyms: down-to-earth, functional, practical, utilitarian, realistic, political

2. Philosophical; dealing with causes, reasons, and effects, rather than with details and circumstances; said of literature.

   Polybius’s pragmatic history is simply the history of affairs, as distinguished from the descriptive and often poetical character which much history before his time had.

   1854 March, J. G., “On the Dating of Ancient History”, in Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, volume 1, page 53

   1 more example

   […]such objects belonged to the domain of the comic poet, and of the lighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious kinds, for pragmatic poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius, they were more difficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted.

   1856, Matthew Arnold, Poems, page 16

3. human sciencesRelating to the field of pragmatics.
4. obsoleteInterfering in the affairs of others; officious; meddlesome.

plural pragmatics · alternative pragmatical · alternative pragmatick · alternative pragmatique

1. A man of business.
2. A busybody.
3. A public decree.