factual, a.
(ˈfæktjuːəl)
[f. fact n., after the analogy of actual.]
Pertaining to or concerned with facts; of the nature of fact, actual, real.
| a 1834 Coleridge Notes Southey's Life Wesley (1858) ii. 8 That I should quench the ray and paralyse the factual nerve, by which I have hitherto been able to discriminate veracity from falsehood. 1846 Whewell Syst. Morality iii. 58 We can never present the Factual part of a Fact, separate from the Ideal part. 1846 De Quincey Antigone of Sophocles Wks. XIV. 211 Any direct factual imitation, resting upon painted figures..would have been no art whatsoever. 1884 R. F. Burton Book of Sword 201 Our factual knowledge of Mesopotamian civilisation. |
| absol. 1876 W. Alexander Bampton Lect. v. (1877) 144 The facts and the history are Jewish; but there is a typical in the factual. |
Hence
ˈfactually adv., in a factual manner; as matter of fact.
| 1852 Pulsford tr. Muller's Chr. Doctr. Sin I. 28 The universal moral condition of the human race, as it factually exists. 1884 R. F. Burton Book of Sword 149 Nilotic allegories and mysteries which the vulgar understood factually and literally. |