as in dreams
a conception or image created by the imagination and having no objective reality
opening our own restaurant has long been a pipe dream
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Recent Examples of pipe dreams
Music promoters, both craving the one-upmanship and genuine satisfaction of getting a lucrative band back on a stage, have more money at their disposal than ever before to make their pipe dreams a reality.
—
Devon Ivie, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2025
The stalker pipe dreams need to stop here.
—Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2025
The idea that renewables alone can power the American economy is nonsense given the current technology, green pipe dreams notwithstanding.
—Editorial, Boston Herald, 8 Sep. 2025
Devon Ivie, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2025
The stalker pipe dreams need to stop here.
—Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2025
The idea that renewables alone can power the American economy is nonsense given the current technology, green pipe dreams notwithstanding.
—Editorial, Boston Herald, 8 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pipe dreams
Noun
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Around him, siblings, lovers and friends face CIA threats, tourist-rental anxieties, drug-dealing producers, secret desire and lottery dreams in a choral portrait of love, family and frustrated escape.—
Callum McLennan,
Variety,
11 May 2026
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Each gets stage time to speak at length about their dreams, both realized and broken, and regrets.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
11 May 2026
Noun
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Their shared trip gradually turns into a confrontation with their own lives, relationships and visions of the future.—
Leo Barraclough,
Variety,
6 May 2026
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There are many competing visions of how technology and military strategy should be combined in the Gulf’s waters, some of which cross into the bizarre.—
Mohammed Sergie,
semafor.com,
4 May 2026
Noun
-
Masks are slipping and illusions are fading.—
Valerie Mesa,
PEOPLE,
6 May 2026
-
The United States, searching for self-definition but loath to lose its illusions—its innocence—needed all of this as a counterpoint.—
Sebastian Smee,
New Yorker,
4 May 2026
Noun
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The sophisticated set by ace production designer David Gropman enables Altman’s perpetually moving and zooming camera to drift in and out of two-way mirrors that depict memories and fantasies with both immediacy and a gauzy nostalgia.—
Jim Hemphill,
IndieWire,
1 May 2026
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But what Danielson says was intended as a symbolic protest escalated dramatically amid paranoid fantasies, prosaic miscommunications, and the false report of a gun.—
Tessa Stuart,
Rolling Stone,
23 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Nina, Karen and Caroline started appearing in my daydreams, full of vigor and life lessons.—
Jennifer Acker,
PEOPLE,
8 May 2026
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Some stories plant deep in your creative brain and come out through songs heard on the radio and random daydreams in the shower.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Pipe dreams.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pipe%20dreams. Accessed 14 May. 2026.
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