wet dream
1
8.8
- noun
- /wɛt drim/
- Slang
:
quimera
- Believing that he could win the lottery every week was just a wet dream that distracted him from reality.
Examples
-
His budget is nothing more than a Republican wet dream, which offers a list of their pet projects repackaged as solutions to the debt crisis.
Blog text (33) -
All of them, except Cullen, had decided finally to go, to make the emotional pledge with brothers from around the country, to atone, to do better by their families, even though every brother in this room was living America's wet dream.
Fiction book (1998) -
Many people view the promise of a flying car as nothing more than a wet dream that will never come true.
-
She realized that her idea of living on a tropical island was merely a wet dream rather than a feasible plan.
Synonyms
23
6.8
A hope or plan that is not likely to happen
22
7.7
An idea or hope that seems real but is not possible
4
6.8
A hope for something you cannot achieve
A hope that seems unlikely to come true
How Realistic
43
2.6
- Informal
45
4.1
112
3.8
- Slang
1
8.8
- Informal
23
6.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
wet + dream
The intended meaning 'an unrealistic hope or fantasy' (and the common literal sense 'nocturnal emission') cannot be predicted simply from 'wet' + 'dream' by a B1 learner: the phrase is idiomatic and culturally/sexually specific rather than compositionally built from the two words. Because its senses are conventionalized and require cultural knowledge or prior exposure, the MWE is not derivable from its parts and is therefore opaque.
Etymology
The slang use of wet dream compares an impossible wish to a sexual dream that happens only during sleep and does not become real. So, it means 'an unrealistic hope or fantasy'.