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Synonyms

dream up

British  

verb

  1. (tr, adverb) to invent by ingenuity and imagination

    to dream up an excuse for leaving
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
dream up Idioms  

  1. Invent, concoct, as in Count on her to dream up some explanation for her absence. This expression replaced the somewhat earlier dream out. [c. 1940]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Occasionally, I got transformations so wild—or horrific—they could only be dreamed up with AI.

From The Wall Street Journal

Wake him up in the middle of night, and he is probably dreaming up ideas about AI.

From The Wall Street Journal

For dreaming up fantasy fashion statements, combining any given celebrity with any given clothing ensemble like an infinite set of paper dolls.

From Washington Post

Public Schools spent years dreaming up the Early College Academy, persuading the current cohort to take accelerated classes in ninth and 10th grades when they were still in middle school.

From Washington Post

Creative jobs in industries such as marketing, writing, design and art may use AI to dream up ideas.

From Washington Post

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.