English

Alternative forms

• pragmatick (archaic)
• pragmatique (obsolete)

Adjective

pragmatic ‎(comparative more pragmatic, superlative most pragmatic)

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.

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

     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).

2. philosophical; dealing with causes, reasons, and effects, rather than with details and circumstances; said of literature.
   • Sir W. Hamilton

     Pragmatic history.

   • M. Arnold

     Pragmatic poetry.

Synonyms

• (practical): down-to-earth, functional, practical, utilitarian, realistic

Antonyms

• idealistic

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

External links

• pragmatic in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• pragmatic in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911