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View synonyms for pipe dream

pipe dream

1

noun

  1. any fantastic notion, hope, or story:

    Her plans for a movie career are just a pipe dream.



pipe-dream

2

[ pahyp-dreem ]

verb (used without object)

, pipe-dreamed or pipe-dreamt, pipe-dream·ing.
  1. to indulge in pipe dreams; fantasize.

pipe dream

noun

  1. a fanciful or impossible plan or hope


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Word History and Origins

Origin of pipe dream1

An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900

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Word History and Origins

Origin of pipe dream1

alluding to dreams produced by smoking an opium pipe

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Idioms and Phrases

A fantastic notion or vain hope, as in I'd love to have one home in the mountains and another at the seashore, but that's just a pipe dream . Alluding to the fantasies induced by smoking an opium pipe, this term has been used more loosely since the late 1800s.

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Example Sentences

I was drawn to The Class for different reasons—chiefly, the pipe dream of achieving a tighter and tauter backside.

First of all, the idea that Childers ever had any kind of chance of winning a Senate seat in Mississippi was a pipe dream.

But getting our divided, dysfunctional Congress to agree on a course of action seems like a pipe dream.

Yet it's a pipe dream to hope for a trancendent figure to help the GOP cleanse itself of the fringe.

In other words, in the realm of what has been called the “bio-doc,” objectivity is an elusive pipe dream.

I was about to give you a message from his majesty our king, but if you're on a pipe dream don't let me call you home.

But how among countless suggestions is a "cause" to know the difference between a true invention and a pipe-dream?

This is no pipe dream or a simple newspaper yarn, but the plain truth.

I have been trying to believe that what he told me isn't altogether a pipe-dream, but it sounds mightily like one.

"Sounds like a pipe-dream," commented Matt, when his chum had finished.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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