Irrealis

//ɪɹiˈɑːlɪs// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An irrealis construct.

    "[…] then it would make sense to view Australian past irrealises as TAM forms combining a modal stative predicate (conveying e.g. a capacity, expectation, or desire state) with a past imperfective content."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact. not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms
irrealis moodirrealis mood

Example

More examples

"[…] then it would make sense to view Australian past irrealises as TAM forms combining a modal stative predicate (conveying e.g. a capacity, expectation, or desire state) with a past imperfective content."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from New Latin irreālis (“intangible, immaterial”), from Latin in- (“un-: not”) + reālis (“real, material, composed of physical things”), from res (“thing”) + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”). Doublet of irreal.

Related phrases

irrealis mood

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