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ask for the moon



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Idioms and Phrases

Make an unreasonable demand, request the unattainable, as in $1,000 for her birthday? Mary might as well be asking for the moon . This hyperbolic idiom appeared in the mid-1800s in slightly different form. Charles Dickens had it as cry for the moon (in Bleak House , 1852) and William Makepeace Thackeray as wish for the moon (in Lovell the Widower , 1860). Today ask is the most common version.

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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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