Cloud Cuckoo Land

cloud-cuckoo land

A state or realm of unrealistic and idealized fancy, beyond the realms of possibility. Often preceded by "live/be in." He's always got some harebrained schemes on how to fix the world, all of them right out of cloud-cuckoo land! If Tom thinks he'll be able to live off his bad poetry, he's living in cloud-cuckoo land!
See also: land
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

Cloud Cuckoo Land

A nonexistent place of perfection, a utopia. This phrase comes from The Birds by the Greek dramatist Aristophanes, in which the birds decide to build a perfect city called Cloud Cuckoo City. Over the years “City” became “Land.”
See also: cloud, cuckoo, land
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
See also:
  • cloud-cuckoo land
  • la-la land
  • la-la land, in
  • cuckoo
  • be in cloud-cuckoo land
  • live in cloud-cuckoo land
  • possibility
  • realm
  • beyond the realm(s) of possibility
  • beyond/within the realms of possibility
References in periodicals archive
"The Munster GAA brand is there for the last 125 years and has been very successful and if anyone questions that we need to re-brand Cork and Tipperary in the first round of the Munster hurling Championship, then they are living in cloud cuckoo land because the brand is very strong..
The situation was yesterday branded "unacceptable" by police while one teaching union warned that drug turf wars sometimes spilled over into schools, saying anyone who believed children in did not have access to drugs was "living in cloud cuckoo land".
Accepting the democratic right of the individuals who have clout to override the decision of the masses, I offer Cloud Cuckoo Land as an appropriate name.
Speaking from his luxury apartment in Cloud Cuckoo Land, Lord Irvine said: ''Not one murder victim from either side of the community in Northern Ireland has complained about the policy of early release.
Has political correctness shot off the graph into cloud cuckoo land?
Dr Ron Zimmern, 51, is leaving the health service and says the Government is living in cloud cuckoo land if it believes there's enough cash in the NHS.
May I suggest they could leave this country and live elsewhere, not North Korea - but cloud cuckoo land which would be an excellent choice.
THE Children's Commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, must be living in cloud cuckoo land to say that the murderers of Jamie Bulger should not have been tried in a criminal court but put into a controlled environment to rehabilitate them.
Any pensioner who thought that they were going to go roaming about the country for nothing on the longdistance express buses is living in cloud cuckoo land.
BIZARRE council plans to spend pounds 10,000 on pigeon awareness days were ridiculed as being in "cloud cuckoo land" yesterday.
But the proposal was swiftly dismissed by the outgoing Lib Dem acting leader Vince Cable, who said that the Conservative leader appeared to be living in "cloud cuckoo land".
CLOUD CUCKOO LAND? Birmingham Airport's magazine describes it as the best in Europe.
It is common sense, the higher the cost of mortgages, the more pay you need, isn't that inflation or am I living in cloud cuckoo land?
But she responded, 'You are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The ASBO supporters are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think this is a punishment.