idealization
Americannoun
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the act or process of idealizing something.
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Psychoanalysis. a mental mechanism, operating consciously or unconsciously, in which one person overestimates an admired attribute of another.
noun
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the representation of something as ideal
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a conception of something that dwells on its advantages and ignores its deficiencies
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a general theoretical account of natural phenomena that ignores features that are difficult to accommodate within a theory
Etymology
Origin of idealization
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.
Clare, too, receives frequent rhapsodic praise, but even accounting for the narrator’s grief-induced idealization, their relationship strikes me as too perfect.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026
Their cultish idealization of him is an addictive drug.
From Salon • Mar. 26, 2024
Rubens, raising the temperature of the scene, amplifies the idealization by transforming the almost stately frieze into a blockbuster drama of good supplanting evil.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 6, 2021
The sine wave is a smooth, periodic undulation, a mathematical idealization of waves found in nature: energetic seismic waves produced by earthquakes; sonic booms propagating through air; tsunamis spreading across water.
From New York Times • Sep. 14, 2021
Such views and sentiments are incompatible with the idealization of a benevolent despotism.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 8 "Germany" to "Gibson, William" by Various
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.
