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What is "down-to-earth"

Crossword clues for down-to-earth

down-to-earth
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
down-to-earth
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ I never met a more down-to-earth young woman in my life.
▪ Yazzie's approach is much more down-to-earth.
▪ That feat could not be achieved without making Maurice more down-to-earth than he was.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ People are surprised by what an unpretentious, down-to-earth guy he really is.
▪ She's sophisticated, but also practical and down-to-earth.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Eyre's down-to-earth style was well suited to the exploration of these recondite matters.
▪ He thought that it was good to be down-to-earth and scientific.
▪ I never met a more down-to-earth young woman in my life.
▪ Looked a sensible, down-to-earth type to me, and he might be a corrective to what we've just been hearing.
▪ Luckily none of us are massive egotists, we're down-to-earth people, really.
▪ What we want is down-to-earth accountability, not lots of incomprehensible grand ideas.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
down-to-earth

down-to-earth \down-to-earth\ adj. facing reality squarely; guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory. Opposite of idealistic, unrealistic, impractical, and pie-in-the-sky.

Syn: hardheaded, hard-nosed, practical, pragmatic.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
down-to-earth

also down to earth, as an adjectival phrase, attested from 1932.

Wiktionary
down-to-earth

a. (context idiomatic English) practical; realistic; pragmatic.

WordNet
down-to-earth

adj. sensible and practical; "has a straightforward down-to-earth approach to a problem"; "her earthy common sense" [syn: earthy]

Usage examples of "down-to-earth".

The Neo-Confucianists in China had started out to do the very same thing and had ended in producing intellectual syntheses that were far removed from the down-to-earth humanism of Confucianism and the sages of early China.

The professionals, who almost certainly surpassed them in cryptanalytic expertise, concentrated on the down-to-earth problems of the systems that were then in use but are now outdated.

The mix of abstract and practical down-to-earth ideas would not have been recognised by early humans.

The film had a new, liberated attitude towards sex, not the hypocritical titillation of Tinseltown but a gritty, down-to-earth, Lawrentian approach in keeping with the changing times.

He was a down-to-earth guy, a very regular person as recent presidents went.

In fact, in private, Kennedy berated his technical advisors for not producing recommendations for more tangible, down-to-earth scientific spectaculars, such as desalinating seawater.

The future he delineates is practical, down-to-earth, and filled with details.

As the initial funders had died off and the enthusiasm of the dedicated artsy money had waned and endowment had been sought in more down-to-earth quarters, the curricular emphasis had switched to other arenas.

During her rides, she gradually noticed less of the raw beauty and paid more attention to down-to-earth matters like the condition of the grass or fences, and the amount of water around.

I would have given a lot to be able to walk into the Hotel Rogge, sit down at Ashton's table, and have a down-to-earth chat with him.

Best of all, she's created a uniquely down-to-earth heroine in Sookie and an otherworldly charmer in Sookie's beau, Bill.