Main Entry:

²ideal

Function:

noun

Date:

15th century

1 : a standard of perfection, beauty, or excellence 2 : one regarded as exemplifying an ideal and often taken as a model for imitation 3 : an ultimate object or aim of endeavor : goal 4 : a subset of a mathematical ring that is closed under addition and subtraction and contains the products of any given element of the subset with each element of the ring

synonyms see model

— ide·al·less \ī-ˈdē(-ə)l-ləs\ adjective