what does the phrase "a real word" mean?

Solution 1:

A word can be considered a real word even if it's not in an established dictionary. Many words that have yet to appear in dictionaries are widely understood, and could be added over time - if their usage continues. Others fall away over time, but during their peak, they would have been just as real as standard dictionary words.

Merriam-Webster's Help Section has a question on this: If a word is not in the dictionary, does that mean it isn't a real word? which indicates

One of the most prolific areas of change and variation in English is vocabulary; new words are constantly being coined to name or describe new inventions or innovations, or to better identify aspects of our rapidly changing world. Constraints of time, money, and staff would make it impossible for any dictionary, no matter how large, to capture a fully comprehensive account of all the words in the language. And even if such a leviathan reference was somehow fashioned, the dictionary would be obsolete the instant it was published as speakers and writers continued generating new terms to meet their constantly changing needs.

...

Most general English dictionaries are designed to include only those words that meet certain criteria of usage across wide areas and over extended periods of time. As a result, they may omit words that are still in the process of becoming established, those that are too highly specialized, or those that are so informal that they are rarely documented in professionally edited writing. The words left out are as real as those that gain entry; the former simply haven't met the criteria for dictionary entry – at least not yet (newer ones may ultimately gain admission to the dictionary's pages if they gain sufficient use).

Solution 2:

If it shows up in a dictionary you respect, it's a real word. Dictionaries add words based on real-world usage. So if enough people use it in print, in multiple placed (e.g. books as well as internet) for a long enough time, it will show up in a dictionary. Of course, each dictionary decides how much "enough" is. For Urban Dictionary, which is crowdsourced, one posting makes it "real". For the official Oxford English Dictionary, which takes years to update, it requires a lot more instances of a new word before it is included. Other dictionaries, including Oxford Dictionaries Online, steer a course somewhere those extremes, adding words fairly quickly. some additions from last year:

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/08/oxford-dictionaries-update-august-2014/

But the "real" answer is that for English, there is no central authority that decides whether a word is "real"—a word is real if, when you use it, people (or at least your peeps) grok it.

Edit: I changed the first word of above answer from "When" to "If".

Solution 3:

What is a word? There can't be a definite answer, unless one person uses it and another person understands it.

For most of us words are in the dictionary. But in scientific fields there are a lot of words that are in no standard dictionary and every day new scientific terms are invented.

My grandmother used words only she used. I have a lot of individual words or terms I use for language and grammar only for myself because a lot of grammar terms are vague, clumsy, unpractical or lacking. For me those terms are words as house or mouse.

Young children have words only the mother understands. So what is a word?

Solution 4:

To answer your question:

How can a question ask if a word is real without using the word as a word?

I'd ask: Is X expression a real word? Let me explain. My apologies for such a long answer, but I think your question deserves it.

WORDS

An explanation following widely accepted principles

Definitions

1. Humans can only describe what comes to be known to them through their senses.
2. The data we collect from the real world through experience is stored in our consciousness in ideas.
3. To transmit the data stored in an idea we use expressions.
4. When the transmission of an idea, i.e. an expression, becomes meaningful to other party different than ourselves, thus allowing them to store a mirrored version of one of our experiences; we call that communication.
5. Expressions are susceptible to having more than one interpretation.
6. Ideas can always be expressed in more than one way.

Proposition 1

An expression to become a word must describe an item that belongs to the real world. This is evident by definition 1.

Proposition 2

An expression can also become a word if it describes an item not belonging to the real world. By definition 3 we have that an expression is the transmission of an idea. However an idea is not limited to what exists in reality. An idea can be the result of the operation of ideas, which are beyond the scope of this treatise, when at least one operand came from the real world. An example: Minotaurus = Human + Bull.

Proposition 3

The quality of our communication with others is never perfect. This is evident by definition five. The quality of the communication is greater when the amount of incongruencies between the original idea and the mirrored version tends to zero.

Proposition 4

If we take Proposition 3 and definition 6 as truthful, the next is also true. The relationship between idea transmitted and idea received is many to many, thus a new entity needs to be created: meaning.

Proposition 5

The level of an expression depends on the amount of human beings that have access to the reference of the meaning of an expression. If it's two people, it remains as an expression. If more than two people have access, we might call it a term. If a large amount of people, e.g. a community, have access to it, we call it a word.