wide blue yonder
- noun
- Literature
- ♪ Off they go into the wide blue yonder ♪
Examples
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The children gazed at the wide blue yonder, dreaming of the adventures they would have one day.
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As the balloon floated higher, it disappeared into the wide blue yonder, leaving the crowd in awe.
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She felt a sense of freedom as she stared at the wide blue yonder, imagining all the places she could explore.
Synonyms
Sky that looks clear and blue during the day
A wide open area like land or water
The sky you see during the day
The open blue sky far above the ground
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'wide' (broad) + 'blue' (the colour of a clear sky) + 'yonder' (over there), so a learner who knows those words can infer a broad expanse of blue sky or the open beyond. It is somewhat poetic/marked (and 'yonder' is slightly archaic), but the meaning is still directly derivable from the constituents, making it accessible to B1 learners.
Etymology
The phrase wide blue yonder comes from the picture of a very large, blue sky stretching far away, with wide, blue and yonder meaning 'over there' and making the image. So it means the open sky or wide world you can travel into and the idea of adventure.