airmonger

Etymology

From air + monger.

Why this word is great

AIRMONGER — [Noun] A hopeless visionary, a quixotic or unrealistic schemer. From air (insubstantial or fanciful ideas) + monger ("dealer, trader"), thus literally "a dealer in air or empty schemes." Unlike "dreamer" (which may carry a hopeful or creative charge) or "idealist" (which suggests principled pursuit), an airmonger traffics in plans so divorced from reality they verge on the absurd. It is the man sketching perpetual motion machines on napkins, the woman drafting manifestos for utopias with no citizens, the entrepreneur pitching a business model that defies arithmetic—each a tragicomic figure, forever mistaking the weightless for the possible. The world shrugs; the airmonger, undeterred, floats on.

noun

  1. A hopeless visionary, a quixotic or unrealistic schemer.“Check thy self, thou Air-monger; that with a madding thought, thus chasest fleeting shadows.”