pipe dream
noun
any fantastic notion, hope, or story.
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pipe dream
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pipe-dream
pipe-dreamverb (used without object)to indulge in pipe dreams; fantasize.
pipe dream
1 Americannoun
pipe-dream
2
American
[pahyp-dreem]
/ ˈpaɪpˌdrim /
verb (used without object)
pipe-dreamed,
pipe-dreamt,
pipe-dreaming
pipe dream
British
noun
pipe dream
Idioms
Etymology
Origin of pipe dream
An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900
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.
See Examples For:
Perhaps it’s a pipe dream to think that the solution to issues created by Medicaid estate recovery is more education about estate planning.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026
Getting this bill through the House is not a pipe dream.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
Vozinha played 80 times as Cape Verde chased the pipe dream of someday reaching the World Cup.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
“It was a pipe dream for so long … the notion that we would get a subway to the Westside,” Yaroslavsky said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 7, 2026
That old image of myself as a hero, as a man of conscience and courage, all that was just a threadbare pipe dream.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
He started a landscaping business, calling it Semper Fi, a “big pipe-dream thing” that he ultimately pared down to an office of just one.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 28, 2021
The original film was meant to be a Christmas parable, a la "It's a Wonderful Life," about discovering the value of what you have as opposed to the pipe-dream wish you think you want.
From Salon ● Dec. 10, 2020
Puzzles and games — and penning a novella about surreal numbers, and composing a 90-minute multimedia musical pipe-dream, “Fantasia Apocalyptica” — are the sorts of things that really tickle him.
From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2018
In the meantime, the idea of free movement of goods and services as envisioned by the founding heads of state of the regional body Ecowas will remain a pipe-dream.
From BBC ● May 24, 2017
"Concerning the article! You mean to say that you believe that other pipe-dream? Is everyone reading Dick Tracy these days?"
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
I never have pipe-dreamed much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day.
From The Forbidden Trail by Honoré Morrow
Says Dr. William Friedewald, associate director of the Na tional Heart, Lung and Blood Institute: "Of course, our goal is prevention, to have no Barney Clarks in the future, but right now that's pipe-dreaming."
From Time Magazine Archive
James Thurber's pipe-dreaming hero never imagined himself conducting a symphony orchestra, but thousands of his spiritual prototypes have.
From Time Magazine Archive
"You forget that you've just been telling me that you don't intend to comply with the one hard-and-fast condition to such an arrangement as the one I've been pipe-dreaming about."
From The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush by Francis Lynde
“I will leave this gentleman to continue his pipe-dreaming, advising him, however, that it is a dangerous practice.”
From The Case and Exceptions Stories of Counsel and Clients by Frederick Trevor Hill
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.
