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:
What for so long had seemed like a pipe dream - as attainable as a lottery win - is now a reality staring Scotland in the face.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
WSJ explores whether data centers in space are a pipe dream or AI’s next big thing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 12, 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
The oil-futures market thinks oil will fall from $98 a barrel today to $80 by September and $75 by Christmas — but that may be a pipe dream.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 11, 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
The cheapest coffin costs four times what Domingo’s pipe-dream sidecar would have.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 10, 2018
"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
James Thurber's pipe-dreaming hero never imagined himself conducting a symphony orchestra, but thousands of his spiritual prototypes have.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
"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.
