"impossible dream" meaning in English

See impossible dream in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: impossible dreams [plural]
Etymology: From Don Quixote. Head templates: {{en-noun}} impossible dream (plural impossible dreams)
  1. (figuratively) A belief or goal which is unattainable despite the pursuer's high hopes. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-impossible_dream-en-noun-eLhItN7d Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for impossible dream meaning in English (1.1kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From Don Quixote.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "impossible dreams",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "impossible dream (plural impossible dreams)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1996, Alan Parker, Oliver Stone, Evita",
          "text": "Tell me before I seek worthier pastures / And thereby restore self-esteem / How can you be so short-sighted / To look never further than this week or next week / To have no impossible dream?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A belief or goal which is unattainable despite the pursuer's high hopes."
      ],
      "id": "en-impossible_dream-en-noun-eLhItN7d",
      "links": [
        [
          "belief",
          "belief"
        ],
        [
          "goal",
          "goal"
        ],
        [
          "unattainable",
          "unattainable"
        ],
        [
          "high hopes",
          "high hopes"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) A belief or goal which is unattainable despite the pursuer's high hopes."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "impossible dream"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From Don Quixote.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "impossible dreams",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "impossible dream (plural impossible dreams)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1996, Alan Parker, Oliver Stone, Evita",
          "text": "Tell me before I seek worthier pastures / And thereby restore self-esteem / How can you be so short-sighted / To look never further than this week or next week / To have no impossible dream?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A belief or goal which is unattainable despite the pursuer's high hopes."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "belief",
          "belief"
        ],
        [
          "goal",
          "goal"
        ],
        [
          "unattainable",
          "unattainable"
        ],
        [
          "high hopes",
          "high hopes"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) A belief or goal which is unattainable despite the pursuer's high hopes."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "impossible dream"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.