reverie
Americannoun
-
a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.
lost in reverie.
- Synonyms:
- brown study, abstraction
-
a daydream.
-
a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea.
reveries that will never come to fruition.
-
Music. an instrumental composition of a vague and dreamy character.
noun
-
an act or state of absent-minded daydreaming
to fall into a reverie
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a piece of instrumental music suggestive of a daydream
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archaic a fanciful or visionary notion; daydream
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of reverie
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Old French reverie, resverie, derivative of rever, resver, raver “to speak wildly, wander, dream”; see origin at rave 1, -ery
Explanation
If you're relaxing on the beach, dreaming of how you will never have to get up and go back to work, you're engaged in a reverie, or pleasant daydream. There's nothing wrong with reverie, but if you follow its path into English, you'll see how closely it is connected to madness. The noun is from French rêverie, from a Middle French word meaning "wild speech, delirium," from rever "to roam, speak wildly." Middle French rever is also the source of English rave, as in raving mad.
Vocabulary lists containing reverie
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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:
Breuer has made this his rallying cry as he drives change in the armed forces and tries to jolt Germans from their post-Cold War, end-of-history reverie.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
Now, shaken from a reverie, reality collides with illusion at the languid pace of a stream.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2025
He is likely to find this reverie equally fantastical.
From Slate ● May 8, 2025
When Lennon presented McCartney with “Strawberry Fields Forever,” a woozy reverie loosely based on his childhood, McCartney wrote his own memory piece, “Penny Lane.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2025
He hadn’t entirely awakened Dicey from her reverie.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
Just as musical reveries reveal our secret selves, they also point to what we share with others.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
The Nobel laureate was a poet of unblinking candor and perception who wove classical allusions, philosophical reveries, bittersweet memories and humorous asides into indelible portraits of a fallen and heartrending world.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 3, 2023
Drifting down a corridor at her German school, a world that looks even drabber and uglier after the wonders she’s seen, this Priscilla seems lost in a dream, the most private of reveries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2023
There's Callier, a bar that can inspire Proustian reveries across generations of Eurail clutching backpackers.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2023
But I am letting myself be carried away by reveries which I must now put aside, writes Aronnax.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
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.
