pipe-dream

[pahyp-dreem]

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verb (used without object), pipe-dreamed or pipe-dreamt, pipe-dream·ing.

to indulge in pipe dreams; fantasize.

pipe dream

noun

any fantastic notion, hope, or story: Her plans for a movie career are just a pipe dream.

Origin of pipe dream

An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for pipe-dream

daydream, guess, read, hypothesize, wonder, reflect, contemplate, weigh, ruminate, surmise, conjecture, cerebrate, consider, figure, deliberate, study, dope, muse, excogitate, brainstorm

Examples from the Web for pipe-dream

Historical Examples of pipe-dream

"Sounds like a pipe-dream," commented Matt, when his chum had finished.
Motor Matt's Triumph, or, Three Speeds Forward
Stanley R. Matthews
"Go ahead and have a good time with your pipe-dream, Abe," Morris said.
Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things
Montague Glass
The notion that the trombonist had given a signal he derided as an "Old Sleuth pipe-dream."
Average Jones
Samuel Hopkins Adams
But how among countless suggestions is a "cause" to know the difference between a true invention and a pipe-dream?
A Preface to Politics
Walter Lippmann
I have been trying to believe that what he told me isn't altogether a pipe-dream, but it sounds mightily like one.
The Taming of Red Butte Western
Francis Lynde

British Dictionary definitions for pipe-dream

pipe dream

noun

a fanciful or impossible plan or hope

Word Origin for pipe dream

alluding to dreams produced by smoking an opium pipe

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

Word Origin and History for pipe-dream

pipe dream

1870; the sort of improbable fantasy one has while smoking opium; from pipe (n.1) + dream (n.). Old English pipdream meant "piping."

Idioms and Phrases with pipe-dream

pipe dream

A fantastic notion or vain hope, as in I'd love to have one home in the mountains and another at the seashore, but that's just a pipe dream. Alluding to the fantasies induced by smoking an opium pipe, this term has been used more loosely since the late 1800s.