real thing

the real thing

The genuine or authentic person or thing; the most pure or untainted example of a type of person or thing. You have to be careful in these market bazaars that what you're buying is the real thing and not some cheap imitation. Though many had their doubts about her dedication to the cause, the party's new leader has proven herself to be the real thing.
See also: real, thing
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

real thing

something that is genuine and not an imitation. I don't want frozen yogurt, I want the real thing! Yes, ice cream! She hates plastic that looks like wood. She wants the real thing.
See also: real, thing
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • genuine
  • genuine article
  • come home to
  • come home to (someone or something)
  • come home to someone
  • look alike
  • go down the line
  • hanger-on
  • pond
  • big frog in a small pond
References in periodicals archive
Fans of Stoppard will know the tale involves an investigation of truth, lies, betrayal and love as we follow playwright Henry who is looking for the real thing in art and in love.
"The official flame should visit John O'Groats - especially as the real thing is being set off from Land's End.
The Real Thing finally emerged in 1976 when You To Me Are Everything went to the number one slot in the UK singles chart.
SAINT WHAT YOU DO: The film set and, inset, real thing; STAR: Hanks in Da Vinci Code PACIFICCOASTNEWS.COM
All the latest player lists will be included, and it only takes a tweak or two to change the generic team names to the real thing.
Teenagers (from left) Zaigham Shah, Ikra Chauhan, Pooja Ahluwalia, Hayden Reed and Sean Roberts have been practising for the real thing at Tamworth Snowdome.
A MOCK-UPof a huge Airbus A380 wing was floated on the River Dee last night on the barge that will take the real thing to the Port of Mostyn early next month.
With their shifting sense of scale, it's almost as if they're representing silos, smokestacks, and weathervanes with parts from the real thing. Though abstract, they feel decidedly like models: One almost but not quite recognizes the low, curved entrance to a parking garage; the long arm of a grain chute; the curving facade of a theater.
Their Afro band the Real Thing notched up a string of 15 hits, like their 1976 chart-you topper You To Me Are Everything and Can You Feel The Force, which still fills dance floors today.
In an extreme case of sex fakery, an orchid produces oddball chemicals that mimic a female wasp's allure so well that males prefer the floral scents to the real thing, scientists say.
But the museum's head isn't the real thing: "The ones from South America are usually very ornate," says Hunt.
THE national tour of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, a Bristol Old Vic production, is the first visiting production of the new season at Clwyd Theatr Cymru.
Apart from books that condensed to understandable proportion specialized fields such as structural design and honourable exceptions such as Hertzberger's Lessons for Students in Architecture, which was somehow irresistible, books for students just weren't the real thing.
Raymonda's Wedding, sumptuously costumed by Mike Gonzales and Ken Busbin, came dangerously close to being the real thing. Everyone tossed off pirouettes, and Maya Thickenthighya, like Olga Supphozova in Paquita, did such alarmingly adequate fouettes that one feared a complete Swan Lake must be in the offing.
"Since my last boyfriend looked like a carbon copy of a young Kim Basinger, I decided to go for the real thing," she recalls.