Definition of "pragmatic"

Nor indeed are these restrictions pragmatic in nature: i.e. the ill-formedness of the heed-sentences in (60) is entirely different in kind from the oddity of sentences like: (61) !That man will eat any car which thinks heʼs stupid which is purely pragmatic (i.e. lies in the fact that (61) describes the kind of bizarre situation which just doesnʼt happen in the world we are familiar with, where cars donʼt think, and people donʼt eat cars).

1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 8, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 423

Polybius’s pragmatic history is simply the history of affairs, as distinguished from the descriptive and often poetical character which much history before his time had.

1854 March, J. G., “On the Dating of Ancient History”, in Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology‎, volume 1, page 53

[…] such objects belonged to the domain of the comic poet, and of the lighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious kinds, for pragmatic poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius, they were more difficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted.

1856, Matthew Arnold, Poems, page 16