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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However, five episodes later, only five couples left the pods engaged and set out for a romantic getaway.—
Saman Shafiq,
USA Today,
7 Oct. 2025
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The romantic sparks transcended the boundaries of the screen, with the pair dating in real life from 2007 to 2010.—
Sophie Dodd,
PEOPLE,
7 Oct. 2025
Noun
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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
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The actress, model, and singer portrayed the altruistic dreamer Lani McKenzie on season 8 of the action series, which centered on the exploits of a group of Los Angeles County lifeguards.—
Ryan Coleman,
Entertainment Weekly,
28 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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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
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The trend for the last twenty years is for a Balkanized internet—not the idealistic worldwide web, but local internet without much access to the outside.—
Richard Stengel,
Time,
1 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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But as someone who lives in an NYC apartment and doesn’t have the worries of car ownership or a pet to clean up after, the machine felt bulky and impractical for my lifestyle.—
Nashia Baker,
Architectural Digest,
7 Oct. 2025
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The girls are wearing heeled white dance shoes that are defiantly impractical for the city streets, in striking contrast to the robust sneakers that everyone else has on.—
Rebecca Mead,
New Yorker,
5 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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In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for influence in Asia and Africa, packing their ideological visions in the guise of development, and luring modernizing Asian and African leaders with loans and technical assistance in dam building and hydraulics.—
Nik Kowsar,
Time,
2 Oct. 2025
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Related Stories His latest is a blunt cinematic instrument — loud, loaded and bursting with carnage and ideological angst.—
Clayton Davis,
Variety,
2 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 12 Oct. 2025.
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