pipe dream

pipe dream

A dream or idea that is impossible to accomplish. Many say that achieving world peace is a pipe dream because human beings are so flawed in their logic and emotions.
See also: dream, pipe
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

pipe dream

Fig. a wish or an idea that is impossible to achieve or carry out. (From the dreams or visions induced by the smoking of an opium pipe.) Going to the West Indies is a pipe dream. We'll never have enough money. Your hopes of winning a lot of money are just a silly pipe dream.
See also: dream, pipe
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

pipe dream

A fantastic notion or vain hope, as in I'd love to have one home in the mountains and another at the seashore, but that's just a pipe dream . Alluding to the fantasies induced by smoking an opium pipe, this term has been used more loosely since the late 1800s.
See also: dream, pipe
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

a pipe dream

If you describe something that someone wants to do or happen as a pipe dream, you mean that it is not realistic and will probably not happen. Oh, Toddy, it's a pipe dream. The banks won't lend you that sort of money. He said the figures showed that a third runway at the airport remained a pipe dream. Note: This expression refers to the sort of idea that someone is likely to have when they are smoking a drug in a pipe.
See also: dream, pipe
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

a ˈpipe dream

a hope, belief, plan, etc. that will probably never come true: She’s got this pipe dream about being a pop star.This expression refers to smoking the drug opium, which makes you sleep and gives you powerful dreams.
See also: dream, pipe
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • a pipe dream
  • dream
  • dream on
  • in your dreams
  • dream house
  • dream up
  • figment of the imagination, a
  • benies
  • has the world by the tail
  • have the world by the tail
References in periodicals archive
JANE SAYS: The cards in your Tarot spread are all pointing towards major changes in your life and you can make your "pipe dream" a reality.
YourLIFE: Would life abroad be a pipe dream? GET IN TOUCH
Caption: The four-section modular Pipe Dream home features a 12-in.
Rinker builds on tiny home trend with 'Pipe Dream' concept
New Delhi [India], July 27 ( ANI ): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Friday termed Pakistan's Prime Minister-in-waiting Imran Khan's willingness to resolve Kashmir issue with India a "pipe dream".
Imran willing to resolve Kashmir issue a pipe dream: Swamy
wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy towards the DPRK and learn to co-exist with the country that has nuclear weapons and should wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons which we have developed and completed through all kinds of hardships," North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement, according to KCNA.
Nuclear War With North Korea Closer Than Ever, Official Says
She discusses why to have a senate at all, envisaging the People's Senate, what has gone wrong with the senate, problematic proposals for senate reform, stepping in the right direction, and not a pipe dream. Distributed in the US by Brunswick Books of Toronto, Canada.
A People's Senate for Canada: Not a Pipe Dream!
While it sounded like a pipe dream to Eye, a US firm called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has signed agreements to work with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and engineering design firm Aecom to develop a prototype.
In 2013, Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors and all-round 'big thinker', suggested a novel form of transport called the 'hyperloop'
Shelter's director of campaigns Roger Harding said: "A further rise in house prices means that for an entire generation a home of their own is nothing but a pipe dream."
House prices still rocketing
Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: "When house prices soar by this much in a single year, it's clear that for millions of people across the country, a home of your own is fast becoming a pipe dream."
Average Welsh house now PS120k
Yes, the old pub has gone and it is only a pipe dream to think that a replica will be built.
Time to make a decision; FEEDBACK
Unfortunately, Mr Miliband's performance up to now makes that prospect little more than a pipe dream. He continually allows the Tories to set the agenda, he always seems to be wrong-footed and Prime Minister's Questions make me weep.
Time to get your act together, Ed; FEEDBACK
ALL GOOD things come to an end, but it was perhaps the most unexpected of defeats for champion jockey Tony McCoy when favourite Foxesbow was comprehensively beaten by Indian Pipe Dream in the Cavendish Cup.
McCoy magic fails to stop tough Pipe Dream making all in Cavendish Cup; TALK OF THE TRACKS
Presently, the concept is more pipe dream than reality because the thermoelectric materials that would need to be wrapped around exhaust pipes to reclaim that heat energy and transform it to electricity only operate at about 5% efficiency.
Recycling exhaust heat
Finally, he said that "compromise does not mean new cabinet", adding that the talks about exempting LF and Kataeb from any cabinet is just a pipe dream.
Fatfat: March 14 eager for compromise
Definition 2.5 A pipe dream for a permutation w is a filling of a the quarter plane [N.sup.2], regarding each element of [N.sup.2] as a cell, elbow joints [??] and a finite number of crosses +, such that a pipe entering from above in column i exits to the left from row [w.sup.-1](i).
Maximal 0-1-fillings of moon polyominoes with restricted chain lengths and rc-graphs
He created costumes for Guys and Dolls in 1950 and in the 1955 revival, and he was a Tony winner in 1955 for Rodgers and Hammer-stein's Pipe Dream. He spent the past 15 years--right up until his death--designing parody-wear for Forbidden Broadway.
Alvin Colt