a sect of school-philosophers formed in opposition to the nominalists. Under the Realists are included the Scotists, Thomists, and all excepting the followers of Ocham. Their distinguishing tenet is, that universals are realities, and have an actual existence out of an idea or imagination; or, as they express it in the schools, a parte rei; whereas the nominalists contend, that they exist only in the mind, and are only ideas, or manners of conceiving things.—Dr Odo, or Oudard, a native of Orleans, afterwards abbot of St Martin de Tournay, was the chief of the sect of the realists. He wrote three books of dialectics, where, on the principles of Boethius and the ancients, he maintained that the object of that art is things, not words; whence the sect took its rise and name.