"chase rainbows" meaning in English

See chase rainbows in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-chase rainbows.ogg [Australia] Forms: chases rainbows [present, singular, third-person], chasing rainbows [participle, present], chased rainbows [participle, past], chased rainbows [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=chase rainbows}} chase rainbows (third-person singular simple present chases rainbows, present participle chasing rainbows, simple past and past participle chased rainbows)
  1. (idiomatic) To pursue unrealistic or fanciful goals. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: dream the impossible dream, end of the rainbow, flight of fancy
    Sense id: en-chase_rainbows-en-verb-WBCLIdkq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for chase rainbows meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "chases rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chasing rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "chase rainbows"
      },
      "expansion": "chase rainbows (third-person singular simple present chases rainbows, present participle chasing rainbows, simple past and past participle chased rainbows)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1921, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 16, in Indiscretions of Archie",
          "text": "\"I'm sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop you chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren't you forgetting that the shop belongs to me?\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975 March 3, “Democrats: Five and Still Counting”, in Time, retrieved 2014-06-26",
          "text": "The message of the campaign brochure was slick and soothing: \"Bentsen. He dreams dreams. But he doesn't chase rainbows.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 January 23, Chris Hewett, “Get ready for the greatest rugby show in the northern hemisphere”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-06-26",
          "text": "But Johnson says he knows the score and intends to approach the challenges ahead with a strong sense of realism. \"I don't want to chase rainbows,\" he said.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pursue unrealistic or fanciful goals."
      ],
      "id": "en-chase_rainbows-en-verb-WBCLIdkq",
      "links": [
        [
          "pursue",
          "pursue"
        ],
        [
          "unrealistic",
          "unrealistic"
        ],
        [
          "fanciful",
          "fanciful"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To pursue unrealistic or fanciful goals."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "dream the impossible dream"
        },
        {
          "word": "end of the rainbow"
        },
        {
          "word": "flight of fancy"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-chase rainbows.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7b/En-au-chase_rainbows.ogg/En-au-chase_rainbows.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/En-au-chase_rainbows.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "chase rainbows"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "chases rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
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    },
    {
      "form": "chasing rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased rainbows",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "chased rainbows",
      "tags": [
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    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "chase rainbows"
      },
      "expansion": "chase rainbows (third-person singular simple present chases rainbows, present participle chasing rainbows, simple past and past participle chased rainbows)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "dream the impossible dream"
    },
    {
      "word": "end of the rainbow"
    },
    {
      "word": "flight of fancy"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1921, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 16, in Indiscretions of Archie",
          "text": "\"I'm sorry to spoil your daydreams and stop you chasing rainbows, and all that, but aren't you forgetting that the shop belongs to me?\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975 March 3, “Democrats: Five and Still Counting”, in Time, retrieved 2014-06-26",
          "text": "The message of the campaign brochure was slick and soothing: \"Bentsen. He dreams dreams. But he doesn't chase rainbows.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 January 23, Chris Hewett, “Get ready for the greatest rugby show in the northern hemisphere”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-06-26",
          "text": "But Johnson says he knows the score and intends to approach the challenges ahead with a strong sense of realism. \"I don't want to chase rainbows,\" he said.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pursue unrealistic or fanciful goals."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "pursue",
          "pursue"
        ],
        [
          "unrealistic",
          "unrealistic"
        ],
        [
          "fanciful",
          "fanciful"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To pursue unrealistic or fanciful goals."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-chase rainbows.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7b/En-au-chase_rainbows.ogg/En-au-chase_rainbows.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/En-au-chase_rainbows.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "chase rainbows"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.