"I run into lots of people who deny that an objective world even exists, but I would argue that, even if it doesn't, the concept is still a useful abstraction."

I especially like this bit.

Edit: The concept of reality has been around a lot longer than science has, hopefully that addresses your title question.

Reality can be tested by science and falsified.

There is the reality everyone I know agrees exists, the table top is hard, we must wall around the wall not thru it. But sometimes I think the world I see is an illusion, only real cause I think it's real. I try to think germs are not real but the last cold I had kicked my fuckin' ass. Um so the germs must be 'real'. . . . .
In deep meditation my body is weightless and only my mind is real, I wish to stay there for ever but then I really want a cup of coffee.

You bring up a very good point, and one I've been touting form some time.
While I could argue with your initial comment, I think the grander concept of Language; meant to be a useful tool, but can sometimes be its own barrier, is the more important issue here.
Perhaps English is unique, or perhaps it's all languages, but the ambiguity and over-use of some terms can be very counterproductive, to say nothing of words that have multiple meanings and/or pronunciations.

Reality is certainly subjective, and while two people may potentially be able to occupy the same reality for some amount of time, I suspect that a person and... say a dog, never could... not really. People can observe the same thing at the same time, but often even then, they don't interpret what they see as the same. A person and a dog observing the same thing will absolutely not interpret what they see as the same. That doesn't make the dog's reality any less 'real' only different.
People, Dogs, Cats... worms... ants, butterflies... trees, flowers.
Do trees and flowers even have 'realities'?? I suspect they do and that they are most likely not anything I can even hope to imagine.

Through consciousness I experience SOMETHING, but I’m sure that I don’t know what it is.To call it the world or the universe seems inadequate. Frankly, I am bewildered by the whole thing.

Donald Hoffman’s “Conscious Realism “ seems to resonate somehow. In any event, the implications of existence are staggering.

New Scientist posted a definition i really liked: "WHAT DO we actually mean by reality? A straightforward answer is that it means everything that appears to our five senses – everything that we can see, smell, touch and so forth. Yet this answer ignores such problematic entities as electrons, the recession and the number 5, which we cannot sense but which are very real. It also ignores phantom limbs and illusory smells. Both can appear vividly real, but we would like to say that these are not part of reality." Read more....

I think reality is different for all of us.We experience ourselves and others in such a multiplicity of ways, and change when our world view is challenged it almost seems that there is no such thing as a universal truth - I quite like that idea I can live in a world of my own making - destroy concepts of gods etc. be the author of my own undoing etc.

You've cut to the core here, Skado.
It seems (to me) that we really do experience 'reality' from our own personal centers.
And, words are fraught with our own history, thus we don't even mean the same thing with any given word.
Inventing words might help, but being humans, we'd soon begin fiddling with all parts of each one, lol, then be back to square one.
In any case, like rainmanjr insinuated, we must deal with our shared existence enough to grab the good stuff, like deserts and love.

I’m in agreement with Groucho on this: “I don’t believe in reality but, on the whole, it’s still the best place to get a good meal.”