Adjective

(-)

Existing in act or reality, not just potentially; really acted or acting; occurring in fact.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)

, volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.}}

Factual, real, not just apparent or even false.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}

(dated) In action at the time being; now existing; current.

(obsolete) Active, not passive.

* Shakespeare

her walking and other actual performances.

* Jeremy Taylor

Let your holy and pious intention be actual ; that is given to God.

Used to emphasise a noun or verb, whether something is real or metaphorical.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}

Adjective

(en adjective)

Predominant; of greatest force.

The prevailing opinion was for additional planning time.

* '', reprinted in 1797, John Bell, ''Bell's British Theatre , Volume 33, page 37 (within play),

He has a humour more prevailing than his curiosity, and will willingly dispense with the hearing of one scandalous story, to avoid giving an occasion to make another, by being seen to walk with his wife.

* 1807 , , The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner , page 187,

and as merciful coun?els are mo?t prevailing when earne?tly pre??ed, ?o I got them to be of the ?ame opinion as to clemency.

* 1826 , , House of Commons Papers , Volume 17, page 411,

I have heard generally that alderman Archer has a more prevailing and powerful influence in the commons than any other alderman, and exercises that influence ;

Prevalent, common, widespread.

* 1829 , James Annesley, Sketches of the Most Prevalent Diseases of India , page 247,

Fever'' and ''dysentery are the most prevailing diseases in this division, more particularly the latter, which is one of the most destructive amongst the troops in India, and particularly so in the European constitution.

* 1832 , David Brewster, Spain'', entry in ''The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia , Volume 17, page 371,

One of the most prevailing defects in this people is their invincible indolence, and hatred of labour, which has, at all times, paralysed the government of their best princes, and impeded the success of their most brilliant enterprises.

* 1940 , Australian Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia No. 33 - 1940 , page 49,

In Sydney at 9 am, by far the most prevailing wind is a westerly, particularly during the colder two-thirds of the year.