How to Use realist in a Sentence

realist

1 of 2 noun
  • Yong: The pessimist, and maybe the realist, in me is not hopeful.
    James Hamblin, The Atlantic, 31 Mar. 2020
  • On the one hand, maybe there isn’t, since Shiv’s realist husband is the one who betrays them.
    Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 20 Dec. 2021
  • Lee made his name as a realist, one who thrived on restraint.
    Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2021
  • And that’s just who Hassan is — a realist, like a true Virgo.
    Mckinley Franklin, Variety, 1 Oct. 2023
  • Some fans have taken the realist approach to the question.
    Kayleigh Roberts, Marie Claire, 14 Dec. 2019
  • At 33, Babel is enough of a realist to know his career is in its twilight's years.
    Matt Majendie, CNN, 16 Oct. 2020
  • Fauci is a realist, and the facts were obvious to anyone who cared to look.
    Benjamin Wallace-Well, The New Yorker, 12 Aug. 2021
  • But the realist in me still thinks of the pillars as an exercise in pounding square pegs into round holes.
    Robert Goulder, Forbes, 3 Mar. 2021
  • Lola said that Hospel was a realist about life, knowing a day would come when one of them would have to live without the other.
    Talis Shelbourne, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2 Dec. 2021
  • She’s a realist, and says PC building takes trial and error.
    Alex Cranz, Wired, 21 Apr. 2021
  • The artist observes nature closely, yet is not a realist.
    Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 23 Oct. 2020
  • Close did not like to think of himself as a realist, photo or otherwise.
    BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2021
  • Not just because the young idealist who wanted to save the world has evolved into a wizened realist.
    Kevin Cullen, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Jan. 2020
  • The second realist case for vaccine diplomacy is the danger that the virus will mutate to evade vaccines.
    Ben Sasse, WSJ, 17 May 2021
  • Helen is the realist, Grace the artsy friend who loves glitter and is a fabulous baker.
    Mary Ann Grossmann, Twin Cities, 11 Feb. 2024
  • And as a writer I’m supposed to be a staid realist with Jamesian tendencies.
    Willing Davidson, The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2023
  • Warda speaks to Westerners not as a beggar but as a realist.
    Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, 28 Dec. 2020
  • Brother Alive is a book of ideas, a book of fathers and sons, a magical-realist mystery, and a revenge story.
    Jonah Bromwich, The Atlantic, 22 July 2022
  • But, a Big Ten head coach who’s now spent more of his career at the college level than the one beneath it, Allen is also both a realist, and a pragmatist.
    Zach Osterman, The Indianapolis Star, 15 Aug. 2023
  • The architect, now 93, is a realist as well as an idealist.
    Blair Kamin, chicagotribune.com, 18 Sep. 2020
  • The realist could look for opportunities either way and make the best of today.
    Mike Bass, The Enquirer, 3 Mar. 2022
  • The second ethic is associated with the realist, who codes as a savvy pol and cares about results.
    Corey Robin, The New Yorker, 12 Nov. 2020
  • There’s a magical-realist dance number in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria that doesn’t quite land.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Mar. 2021
  • Many of the realists whose novels are being interpolated by this show, though, were obsessed with the present.
    Phillip MacIak, The New Republic, 1 Nov. 2023
  • Then, as Saban spoke via video chat from his home office for his radio show, his demeanor turned from that of a motivator to one of a realist.
    Mike Rodak | Mrodak@al.com, al, 25 Sep. 2020
  • But in a magic-realist twist, this underground railroad is no metaphor.
    James Poniewozik, New York Times, 13 May 2021
  • Hrabal got his start as a realist poet so the novel is filled with all these arresting images.
    Amy Sutherland, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Aug. 2022
  • Kabat-Zinn is a realist, though, and acknowledges that most people face constraints to living this way.
    Outside Online, 7 Jan. 2021
  • Treating a human being as an art object, a socialist-realist poster boy, the doc sacrifices Smith to the cause.
    Armond White, National Review, 16 Dec. 2020
  • See all the expensive homes, and a few affordable destinations for the realists, at realtor.com.
    Stacey Leasca, Travel + Leisure, 23 Jan. 2024
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realist

2 of 2 adjective
  • Chris came into the game as one of the most confident and realist players in the Circle.
    Tamara Fuentes, Seventeen, 14 Jan. 2020
  • His Usnavi, a young bodega owner who had to grow up too fast, is half realist, half dreamer and all in for what life brings.
    Matthew J. Palm, orlandosentinel.com, 5 Oct. 2021
  • The sound was marked, lyrically, by concern for the working class and a realist approach to romance: there are no guarantees in life, so drive it like it’s stolen.
    Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2022
  • This is a show that routinely breaks with its largely realist format in favor of flair and emotion.
    Vulture, 2 May 2022
  • Both are surrealist, in a way, and both are hyper-realist.
    Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 May 2022
  • Th project shows a vision of Arab Spain that is very realist, yet far more nuanced and more upbeat than most depictions, the two filmmakers said.
    Liza Foreman, Variety, 15 Sep. 2022
  • This is a sugarless movie, with a grim, realist acknowledgment of a woman’s fate — of a poor, working woman’s fate.
    Wesley Morris, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2020
  • The booth contained dozens of human-sized screens with eerily realist avatars creeping everyone out.
    Popular Science, 9 Jan. 2020
  • There is this other stream that doesn't get a lot of coverage in the media which is a more realist approach to foreign policy that does seek to have a different approach.
    Fox News, 18 June 2018
  • Few realist Democratic candidates for congressional seats wanted to run with Dean at the head of the ticket.
    Victor Davis Hanson, The Mercury News, 8 Aug. 2019
  • Children of Blood and Bone also draws on a very different, realist approach that has claimed attention in mainstream young-adult fiction in the post-Ferguson era.
    Vann R. Newkirk Ii, The Atlantic, 6 Mar. 2018
  • His poetic liberties in a realist mode point back to one of his favorite predecessors, Gustave Courbet.
    Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 1 June 2020
  • In fairy tales, marriages are threatened by enchantments; in realist short stories, they’re often threatened by diseases that teach the characters to be grateful for their remaining time.
    Kristen Roupenian, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2023
  • The quartet allowed its narrator, a writer named Lenù, to move among several different genres of storytelling: the fable, the romance, the realist novel.
    Merve Emre, The Atlantic, 8 Aug. 2020
  • All around the internet, food is being given the realist era treatment: a cinnamon bun oozes with icing, a chocolate chip cookie floats on a lavender background, and a box of Cheez-Its winks coquettishly atop a blue tapestry.
    Bon Appétit, 1 June 2022
  • Try to grasp the mystery of the furry mythical creature in Firelei Báez’s ultra-realist rendering, and try to define the indefinable angst in Heidi Hahn’s ghostly expressionist painting.
    Doug MacCash, NOLA.com, 13 Oct. 2020
  • In the realist novels of writers such as Balzac and Stendhal, for instance, cheer is associated with lower-class provincial men on the make, happily hustling and ascendant in a new capitalist world.
    Ian Beacock, The Atlantic, 2 Aug. 2022
  • What begins as realist fiction pivots with a gigantic metaphysical twist, asking big questions about what obligations a writer has to their characters.
    Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2023
  • In the interview, Obama exhibited his familiarity with nightmares like QAnon and a realist attitude toward the near-future.
    Brian Stelter, CNN, 16 Nov. 2020
  • The avalanche of original science fiction is timely, arriving as many readers and writers in Latin America feel choked by the folksy tropes of magical realism and desensitized by realist depictions of the region’s struggles with violence.
    Emily Hart, New York Times, 10 June 2023
  • That multiversal touch may really add the poetic zing some viewers crave, but others might simply feel a bit bemused by its intrusion into what has played, up until a certain point, as a perfectly solid work of realist fiction based on actual events.
    Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Chris came into the game as one of the most confident and realist players in the Circle.
    Tamara Fuentes, Seventeen, 14 Jan. 2020
  • His Usnavi, a young bodega owner who had to grow up too fast, is half realist, half dreamer and all in for what life brings.
    Matthew J. Palm, orlandosentinel.com, 5 Oct. 2021
  • The sound was marked, lyrically, by concern for the working class and a realist approach to romance: there are no guarantees in life, so drive it like it’s stolen.
    Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2022
  • This is a show that routinely breaks with its largely realist format in favor of flair and emotion.
    Vulture, 2 May 2022
  • Both are surrealist, in a way, and both are hyper-realist.
    Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 May 2022
  • Th project shows a vision of Arab Spain that is very realist, yet far more nuanced and more upbeat than most depictions, the two filmmakers said.
    Liza Foreman, Variety, 15 Sep. 2022
  • This is a sugarless movie, with a grim, realist acknowledgment of a woman’s fate — of a poor, working woman’s fate.
    Wesley Morris, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2020
  • The booth contained dozens of human-sized screens with eerily realist avatars creeping everyone out.
    Popular Science, 9 Jan. 2020
  • There is this other stream that doesn't get a lot of coverage in the media which is a more realist approach to foreign policy that does seek to have a different approach.
    Fox News, 18 June 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'realist.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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