as in romantic
having or marked by a tendency to be guided more by ideals than by reality
an idealist attempt to make a go of a mom-and-pop hardware store on Main Street
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in dreamer
one whose conduct is guided more by the image of perfection than by the real world
an idealist sees the best in everyone, regardless of how they behave
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of idealist
Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 8 Sep. 2024
The film’s first trailer released on Monday, featuring Adam Driver as an idealist architect up against Giancarlo Esposito as a pragmatist mayor.
—Zoe G Phillips, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 May 2024
Tim Grierson, Rolling Stone, 13 Aug. 2025
Skye acts similarly and is an idealist, never criticizing their views.
—Lisa Stardust, People.com, 16 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for idealist
Adjective
The movie stars Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, an idealist architect with the power to control time, who is determined to rebuild a city that seems like New York after an accident plunges it into ruins.
—Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 8 Sep. 2024
The film’s first trailer released on Monday, featuring Adam Driver as an idealist architect up against Giancarlo Esposito as a pragmatist mayor.
—Zoe G Phillips, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 May 2024
Noun
But Loktev is quick to correct anyone who perceives My Undesirable Friends as a snapshot of idealists under duress.
—Tim Grierson, Rolling Stone, 13 Aug. 2025
Skye acts similarly and is an idealist, never criticizing their views.
—Lisa Stardust, People.com, 16 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for idealist
Recent Examples of Synonyms for idealist
Adjective
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Across age groups, people are leaning on AI for emotional support, companionship and in some cases, romantic connections.—
Samantha Subin,
CNBC,
14 Oct. 2025
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With a collaborative relationship dating back to 2023, Crocs and Simone Rocha have attracted attention with their romantic clog styles in the past few years, gaining stamps of approval from celebrities like Julia Fox and Michelle Yeoh.—
Jaden Thompson,
Footwear News,
14 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Throughout the 1970s, as much as Nicholson’s rebels or Beatty’s hopeless romantics, Keaton’s optimistic dreamers repeatedly collided with the realities of the times, measuring the distance between what the counterculture thought was possible and what the world would actually allow.—
Tim Grierson,
Rolling Stone,
11 Oct. 2025
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The bubble-ists think that the Coreweave people are hopeless dreamers at best and shysters at worst.—
Jim Cramer,
CNBC,
28 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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Venus is extremely content in idealistic Libra.—
Lisa Stardust,
Refinery29,
14 Oct. 2025
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For more than a century, people have wondered if the city is ungovernable; with the exception of Fiorello La Guardia, who had New Deal money raining down on him, every idealistic leader who has been elected mayor has left City Hall in some way battered by it.—
Eric Lach,
New Yorker,
9 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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This made real-time speech recognition impractical.—
Atharva Gosavi,
Interesting Engineering,
13 Oct. 2025
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Stanley, the spokesman for WSPA, said the refinery rules and other measures were impractical.—
CalMatters,
Mercury News,
10 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Commissioned by Lincoln Center, the solarpunk narrative explores themes of survival, climate reckoning, and generational power struggles aboard a floating utopian colony in the Pacific Ocean.—
Matt Grobar,
Deadline,
1 Oct. 2025
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Ramírez planted the flag in the infield grass before Slider grabbed it, engaged with a sea of fans who didn’t want to abandon the utopian setting at the ballpark, and then handed it to David Fry.—
Zack Meisel,
New York Times,
29 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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But part of that strategy is clearly paired with the family’s ideological project.—
Max Tani,
semafor.com,
20 Oct. 2025
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Miller argues that universities are breeding grounds for ideological intolerance, laying blame on Marxist ideas.—
Mitch Picasso , Stephen Sorace,
FOXNews.com,
18 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Many of Herzog’s films capture that sense of a quixotic, even bizarre quest, an antihero searching for some kind of truth that may be obvious only to himself.—
Nick Lichtenberg,
Fortune,
28 Sep. 2025
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His performance here most recalls his tragicomic portrayal of John Brown, the heroic but unhinged abolitionist whose quixotic raid on Harpers Ferry helped catalyze the Civil War, in Showtime’s 2020 adaptation of James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
23 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Idealist.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/idealist. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.
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