Usage of "pragmatic" vs. "practical"

As adjectives in general usage (not in jargon terminology), are the words pragmatic and practical synonymous? If not, how do their meanings and proper usage differ?

Let me start with my general sense based on usage that I've read and heard. To me, pragmatic refers to how something is realistic, sensible, and deliberately so. Practical is similar, but has more to do with actually doing something, and being effective. Also, pragmatic is more likely to be an attribute of a person. Practical could equally be a person or an idea.

Let's compare the definitions (from Merriam-Webster):

• pragmatic: dealing with the problems that exist in a specific situation in a reasonable and logical way instead of depending on ideas and theories.

• practical: relating to what is real rather than to what is possible or imagined / likely to succeed and reasonable to do or use / appropriate or suited for actual use.

So here we have a contrast between an idea of being "logical" (pragmatic) versus being "real" (practical).

It's also worth noting that the adjective pragmatic is also related to the philosophical idea of pragmatism Wikipedia, where the noun practicality clearly doesn't contain the same connotation.

For this reason alone, the words are not true cognitive synonyms. At best, one might consider certain usages/definitions of these words to be cognitive synonyms of each other, but in any event there are counter examples. Practicality/Pragmatism is just one example. A practical joke (*pragmatic joke) is another. (Thanks Edwin Ashworth for this latter example.)

In terms of usage where one is clearly more appropriate, I would consider the following sentences:

• She loved him and needed to see him again, and so she did the only practical thing she could do: she sold her car and bought a plane ticket to go visit him.

• Her practical implementation of the theory formed the basis for further research.

In the first example, the woman is acting (at least in part) out of something more than just logic. She is taking real action, even if it's not pragmatic. In the second, its the "real" aspect of the implementation (versus theory) that makes "practical" the better word choice.

As a side note...this doesn't really answer your question, but it's interesting to note that practical is used dramatically more frequently than pragmatic (see this ngram). I wouldn't go so far as to say that pragmatic will die out in favor of practical (if anything the usage of these words is actually converging), but I suspect that practical will continue to be the more popular word for the foreseeable future.

Interesting question. They are relatively close synonyms, but I'd say "practical" is the more all-purpose, general word while "pragmatic" is more specific and related to a way of thinking. Pragmatism is, for instance, a philosophical line of thinking that eschews symbolic representations and ideas in favor of real instruments or, according to Webster's is:

a reasonable and logical way of doing things or of thinking about problems that is based on dealing with specific situations instead of on ideas and theories

The adjective "pragmatic" is:

: dealing with the problems that exist in a specific situation in a reasonable and logical way instead of depending on ideas and theories

"Practical" is:

relating to what is real rather than to what is possible or imagined

Both quite close, but as you can see there seems to be bit of a connotative difference, with "pragmatic" being a bit more academic. I'd probably argue that while pragmatic seems more related to a line of thought, practical refers to actions. For one thing, you seem to always hear someone say "Be practical" but you don't seem to hear "Be pragmatic."