Irl

adj, adv, name, noun, slang

adj, adv, name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An IRL friend. Internet
  2. 2
    Alternative letter-case form of IRL. alt-of
Adjective
  1. 1
    Existing or being such in real life. not-comparable

    "His IRL girlfriend."

  2. 2
    Alternative letter-case form of IRL. alt-of, not-comparable
Adverb
  1. 1
    Initialism of in real life (as opposed to online). Internet, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, not-comparable

    "Due to the splendid isolation guaranteed by her social position she had never met a cock IRL and, as there was no Wi-Fi in the palace, she had no opportunity to check the facts."

  2. 2
    Alternative letter-case form of IRL. Internet, alt-of, not-comparable

    "It’s as if irritating cookie consent pop-ups are occuring^([sic]) irl."

Slang
  1. 1
    In real life. slang, internet, 2010s-2020s

    "We finally met irl."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Initialism of Indy Racing League. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism

Synonyms

All synonyms
in fleshin meatspacein real lifein the fleshmeatspaceoffline

Antonyms

All antonyms
ig

Example

More examples

"Due to the splendid isolation guaranteed by her social position she had never met a cock IRL and, as there was no Wi-Fi in the palace, she had no opportunity to check the facts."

Etymology

Initialisms and abbreviations.

Related phrases

real lifeunited states

More for "irl"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.