over the rainbow
1
7.9
- idiom
- Literature
:
más allá del arcoíris
- As a child, she always imagined a life over the rainbow, free from worries and fears.
- somewhere over the rainbow
Examples
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She dreams of a life over the rainbow.
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Is there really a place over the rainbow?
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After all the struggles, he finally felt he had arrived over the rainbow.
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Many people search for a happiness that seems to exist only over the rainbow.
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In her dreams, she often finds herself in a beautiful place, living over the rainbow where everything is perfect.
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After a long and difficult journey, he finally arrived over the rainbow, where joy and peace awaited him.
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The children imagined a world over the rainbow, filled with happiness and all their wishes coming true.
Synonyms
18
7.7
An imagined place where everything is perfect in society and politics
2
8.8
A made-up perfect place that exists only in dreams
2
4.2
A very beautiful place where people feel happy and peaceful
A hoped-for place or situation that promises great wealth and opportunity
Antonyms
How Ideal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meanings of 'over' (above/beyond) and 'rainbow' (a colorful arc associated with wonder) yield a plausible sense of 'somewhere beyond the rainbow' — a distant or magical place — so a learner could infer a general idea of a faraway, ideal location. However, the fuller sense of an unattainable state of perfect happiness and the expression's cultural/lyrical associations (e.g., the song/Wizard of Oz) are not fully predictable from the parts alone, making the meaning only partially derivable.
Etymology
The expression over the rainbow comes from the song 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' in the movie The Wizard of Oz. The song imagines going over the rainbow to a bright place where worries go away, so the phrase means 'a perfect, far-away happiness'.