pragmatic
/praɡˈmatɪk
/adjective
1Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations: a pragmatic approach to politics...
- As I read history, most of the founders were sensible and pragmatic men rather than visionary idealists.
- This policy was based on two pragmatic considerations, and no guerilla organisation would overlook these.
- Thus his apparent liberality on this question rested on pragmatic considerations rather than on principle.
1.1Relating to philosophical or political pragmatism.Twinned to his pragmatic, populist social democracy has been a maddening Trotskyite temperament....
- Indeed, for a pragmatic libertarian, the political landscape out there is pretty depressing at the moment.
- He saw the pragmatic account of meaning as a method for clearing up metaphysics and aiding scientific inquiry.
1.2 Linguistics Relating to pragmatics.On the contrary, syntax is indispensable for a pragmatic language and pragmatics is indispensable for a syntactic language....
- This is how what linguists term pragmatic markers have arisen in languages worldwide.
- Furthermore, they generate the same pragmatic implicatures.
Origin
Late 16th century (in the senses 'busy, interfering, conceited'): via Latin from Greek pragmatikos 'relating to fact', from pragma 'deed' (from the stem of prattein 'do'). The current senses date from the mid 19th century.