a sect of scholastic 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 idea or imagination, or, as they express it in the schools, a porte réel; whereas the nominalists contend that they exist only in the mind, and are merely ideas, or manners of conceiving things. Odo, or Ouard, 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, in which, on the principles of Boëthius and the ancients, he maintained that the object of that art was things, not words, and hence the sect took its rise and name.