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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In fact, today a friendship could turn romantic.—
Georgia Nicols,
Denver Post,
30 Sep. 2025
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Cassie and another accuser, Jane, told jurors that Diddy brought them into his troubled world under the false auspices of a romantic relationship.—
Victoria Bekiempis,
Vulture,
30 Sep. 2025
Noun
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From vengeful resurrections to satanic rituals, shoplifters waging war on capitalism to secret cults, shadow selves to harrowing births, these genre-defying films crown the Dolls as auteurs, protagonists, dreamers, and disruptors.—
Glenn Garner,
Deadline,
10 Sep. 2025
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My friend, the late Dr. Dorothy I. Height, once described me as a dreamer with a shovel in my hands.—
John Hope Bryant,
Time,
6 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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Edward, played by Louis Partridge, was the youngest of the Guinness siblings and played in the series as the most idealistic and ambitious of the heirs.—
Emily Blackwood,
PEOPLE,
27 Sep. 2025
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In a similar vein, pardon the pun, comes this Frank Wildhorn gothic musical about a Victorian-era doctor with two personalities, one an idealistic doctor, the other an evil murderer.—
Pam Kragen,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
21 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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In vacuum and one-sixth gravity, lubricants boil off, moving parts behave differently, and remote or autonomous operation is necessary because of the time delay between Earth and Moon, which makes real-time teleoperation impractical.—
Kaif Shaikh,
Interesting Engineering,
24 Sep. 2025
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Unfortunately, some of these tests are impractical and risk causing real-world harm.—
Matthew Hutson,
IEEE Spectrum,
22 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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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
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At the same time, such a transition as implied by the current crisis necessitates and implies a coming organizational shift in society, but that could either result in a hideous fascism or in something genuinely utopian.—
Ed Simon
September 24,
Literary Hub,
24 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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Will Lazarus have the stomach for uncomfortable political speech controversies that come with running an ideological media company like MSNBC?—
Max Tani,
semafor.com,
28 Sep. 2025
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Kennedy and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for much of their overlapping tenures represented the ideological center of the court at a time when the institution became increasingly conservative.—
Nina Totenberg,
NPR,
27 Sep. 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 2 Oct. 2025.
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