idealized image
Americannoun
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a personal standard of perfection against which one's actual thinking, behavior, and appearance are compared.
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an exaggerated and unrealistic view of one's virtues and abilities.
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.
On its own, the collapse of SVB would probably not have done a whole bunch to dismantle the idealized image of tech billionaires as bounteous stewards of American society.
From Salon ● Mar. 14, 2023
She’s an idealized image, a manic pixie dream dead sister, one that Lennon can never live up to, and she also never feels like a real person.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 10, 2022
On a sunny day, the area is at its postcard best, and much of the lake lives up to that idealized image.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 20, 2021
On an outdoor patio, beside a scale model of Ziolkowski’s planned sculpture, tourists took their own version of a popular photo: the idealized image in front, and the unfinished reality in the distance behind it.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 16, 2019
An Irish Englishman, Mr. Bernard Shaw, with another falsely idealized image of America, surprised that a face does not fit his image, can ask: "What is Poe doing in that galley?"
From Modern Essays by Harry Morgan Ayres
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
