Adjective

(en adjective)

Of the essence or essential element of a thing; as, "substantive information".

* 2012 , The Economist, 06 Oct 2012 issue; [http://www.economist.com/node/21564222 The first presidential debate: Back in the centre, back in the game]

In one sense the first debate achieved the worst of all worlds: it managed to be technical, even dull, without being substantive or especially honest.

Having substance; enduring; solid; firm; substantial.

* Hazlitt

Strength and magnitude are qualities which impress the imagination in a powerful and substantive manner.

(legal) Applying to essential legal principles and rules of right; as, "substantive law".

(chemistry) Of a dye that does not need the use of a mordant to be made fast to that which is being dyed.

Depending on itself; independent.

* Francis Bacon

He considered how sufficient and substantive this land was to maintain itself without any aid of the foreigner.

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.}}