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Showing results for wishful thinking. Search instead for wishful+thinker.
Synonyms

wishful thinking

American  

noun

  1. interpretation of facts, actions, words, etc., as one would like them to be rather than as they really are; imagining as actual what is not.

wishful thinking British  

noun

  1. the erroneous belief that one's wishes are in accordance with reality

"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
wishful thinking Idioms  

  1. Interpreting matters as one would like them to be, as opposed to what they really are. For example, Matthew wanted to be a basketball player, but with his height that was wishful thinking. This term comes from Freudian psychology of the mid-1920s and soon began to be used more loosely.

Other Word Forms

  • wishful thinker noun

Etymology

Origin of wishful thinking

First recorded in 1925–30

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.