academic vs practical

academic

adj
  • Having a love of or aptitude for learning. 

  • Belonging to the school or philosophy of Plato 

  • So scholarly as to be unaware of the outside world; lacking in worldliness; inexperienced in practical matters. 

  • Belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning, or a scholarly society or organization. 

  • Conforming to set rules and traditions; conventional; formalistic. 

  • Having little practical use or value, as by being overly detailed and unengaging, or by being theoretical and speculative with no practical importance. 

  • In particular: relating to literary, classical, or artistic studies like the humanities, rather than to technical or vocational studies like engineering or welding. 

  • Subscribing to the architectural standards of Vitruvius. 

noun
  • A senior member of an academy, college, or university; a person who attends an academy; a person engaged in scholarly pursuits; one who is academic in practice. 

  • A member of the Academy; an academician. 

  • A follower of Plato, a Platonist. 

  • Academic studies. 

  • Academic dress; academicals. 

practical

adj
  • Of a person, having skills or knowledge that are practical. 

  • Light fixtures used for set lighting and seen in the frame of a shot as part of the scenery. 

  • Being likely to be effective and applicable to a real situation; able to be put to use. 

  • Of a prop: having some degree of functionality, rather than being a mere imitation. 

  • Relating to, or based on, practice or action rather than theory or hypothesis. 

noun
  • A prop that has some degree of functionality, rather than being a mere imitation. 

  • A light fixture used for set lighting and seen in the frame of a shot as part of the scenery. 

  • A part of an exam or series of exams in which the candidate has to demonstrate their practical ability 

  • Laboratory experiment, test or investigation 

How often have the words academic and practical occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )