American Dream

American  

[uh-mer-i-kuhn dreem] / əˈmɛr ɪ kən ˈdrim /

Or American dream

noun

1. a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the United States.

   I want to find a decent job, buy a house, have a family, and live the American dream.

2. the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American.

   The American Dream even allows us to criticize America, as part of our freedom of speech.

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American Dream British  

noun

1. the notion that the American social, economic, and political system makes success possible for every individual

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American Dream Cultural  

1. A phrase connoting hope for prosperity and happiness, symbolized particularly by having a house of one's own. Possibly applied at first to the hopes of immigrants, the phrase now applies to all except the very rich and suggests a confident hope that one's children's economic and social condition will be better than one's own.

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Usage

What is the American Dream? The American Dream is the aspirational belief in the U. S. that all individuals are entitled to the opportunity for success and upward social mobility through hard work.

Etymology

Origin of American Dream

First recorded in 1930–35

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

American Dream

But, ultimately, it wasn’t money that her mother was after, it was green cards for them both, the permanence and safety of American citizenship: the American Dream.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026

"Union Town," which debuts Wednesday at the festival, is the third in a trilogy about worker struggles by the Oscar-winning US director, following 1976's "Harlan County U.S.A." and 1990's "American Dream."

From Barron's ● Sep. 9, 2026

Once a mainstay of the American Dream, the conventional ladder of studying hard, going to a top college and landing a good job seems further out of reach.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

Meanwhile: The fictional Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza from the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” videogames and movies is getting a real-life location at the American Dream shopping mall in East Rutherford, N.J., complete with animatronic stage shows.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

If this were an American Dream story, Dandy, who arrived in Chicago in the early 1930s, would have found a good job and a pathway to college.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

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