pipe dream
23
6.8
- noun
- /ˈpaɪp drim/
- Informal
:
sueño imposible
- We all need something to look forward to, even if it is just a pipe dream.
So hopefully it doesn't happen, but that may be a pipe dream.
- So hopefully it doesn't happen, but that may be a pipe dream.
- And that doesn't mean that it's just some sort of pipe dream.
- So there's many things that can be a pipe dream if you let them be a pipe dream.
- So realistically, it seemed like a pipe dream, but I, like, took it as just pure motivation.
- And I think this whole hope that we're going to get to midterms is an absolute pipe dream.
- You know, too many people spend their whole life, they say they're dreaming, but they're really just pipe dreams.
- In the United States today, cold fusion is a term synonymous with scientific pipe dreams, hyped up failures, and pseudoscience.
- It went what a pipe dream that was, he said.
- You know, it, it was a pipe dream.
- So this one would be circled around what I call pipe dream pricing.
- I, I think my favorite one I'll just throw out there is like pipe dream but in, in VR.
- The military, it was a standoff, as we know well, stupid pipe dream.
- And we have this kind of pipe dream that will join forces and and kind of do empires sort of for physicists.
Examples
-
"Not now," he says, "not in this recession; that was just a pipe dream."
Fiction book (1994) -
It was just a pipe dream.
-
You must think this is a pipe dream, but I know it's going to happen.
Fiction book (1995) -
Going home is a possibility for me, not just a pipe dream anymore.
Blog text (13) -
Fixed exchange rates have economic costs, and monetary union is a political pipe dream.
Academic text (1993) -
Frankly, I think getting him to Minnesota is a pipe dream at this point.
Blog text (3) -
Biofuels are nothing more than a pipe dream for the environmental and government communities.
Blog text (1) -
I've always thought this was a pipe dream, and perhaps it is.
Blog text (14) -
Well, OK, it may sound like a pipe dream, but we are working on it, and I don't see why this couldn't happen.
-
Many consider her plans for a space colony to be just a pipe dream.
Synonyms
45
4.1
Believing something you want will happen even though it is unlikely
36
8.1
A hope that is beautiful but unlikely to come true
22
7.7
An idea or hope that seems real but is not possible
10
7.5
An idea or plan that is unlikely to happen
8
4.6
A belief about the future that is not likely to happen
7
7.4
An imaginative idea that is unlikely to be true or useful
4
6.8
A hope for something you cannot achieve
1
8.2
An idea or plan that is unrealistic and unlikely to happen
An idea or plan that has no chance of success
To imagine things that are unlikely or impossible
A hope that seems unlikely to come true
How Realistic
Surface Forms
Morphology
pipe + dream
The meaning 'an unrealistic or impossible hope' cannot be predicted from 'pipe' (a tube) plus 'dream' (an aspiration); the component 'pipe' provides no obvious clue to unreality for a B1 learner. The expression is historically idiomatic and conventionalized, so its sense must be learned from exposure rather than composed from the parts.
Etymology
Pipe dream may come from the image of people smoking a drug-filled pipe and then seeing strange, pleasant dreams or visions. Because those visions came from the smoke and were not real plans, the phrase came to mean a 'plan or hope that is not likely to happen'.