Powerball Winner: My 'Pipe Dream' Finally Came True

Pipe dream was among our top lookups on August 24th, 2017, after the word was used by the winner of a large lottery prize.

Mavis Wanczyk won the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history Wednesday, a $758 million Powerball jackpot that she celebrated by calling in newly rich, telling her longtime employer that she would not be coming in to work. Not now, and not ever ... “I had a pipe dream, and my pipe dream finally came true,” she added, explaining that she had hoped to retire early from Mercy Medical Center, where she has worked for 32 years.

Pipe dream has been in use since the late 19th century, although the original use differed somewhat from the manner in which most people use it today. The current meaning of "an illusory or fantastic plan, hope, or story" was still intended, but the word is believed to have come from the illusory thoughts and fantasies brought about by smoking a pipe of opium.

Were it not for this the following incident, which can be verified by the word of several reputable men, would long ago have received the space and attention it merits instead of being consigned to the wastebasket as the "pipe dream" of an opium devotee.
—Columbus Daily Enquirer (Columbus, GA), 1 Sept. 1895