dream means ideal; perfect.
dream is pronounced /ˈdɹiːm/.
Why “dream” is a great word
Ideal; perfect. From Middle English dream, from Old English drēam ("joy, melody, music, frenzy"), from Proto-West Germanic *draum, from Proto-Germanic *draumaz ("dream"), from earlier *draugmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrowgʰ-mos, from *dʰrewgʰ- ("to deceive"); the modern sense relating to sleep imagery, though not the primary meaning in Old English, was reinforced by Old Norse draumr. Unlike "ideal"—which suggests a cool, conceptual standard—or "fantasy"—which denotes an imagined scenario with an air of escapism—dream carries the poignant heat of a personal, deeply felt, and often-seemingly-unattainable flawlessness. It is the apartment you walk past at dusk, its windows warm with yellow light and the promise of lives better furnished than your own; the job described in a stranger's anecdote that makes your own ambitions feel like half-measures; the summer afternoon whose light seems arrested in a state of grace—a perfection that does not convince the mind but bypasses it entirely, touching something older, quieter, and far less certain, always just slipping over the horizon.
Etymology
From Middle English dream, dreem, dreeme, drem, dreme, dræm, from Old English drēam, drēm, drīm (“joy; melody, music; frenzy”), from Proto-West Germanic *draum, from Proto-Germanic *draumaz (“dream”), from earlier *draugmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrowgʰ-mos, from *dʰrewgʰ- (“to deceive”). The sense of "dream", though not attested in Old English, may still have been present (compare Old Saxon drōm (“bustle, revelry, jubilation", also "dream”)), and was undoubtedly reinforced later in Middle English by Old Norse draumr (“dream”), from same Proto-Germanic root. Cognates Cognate with Scots dreme (“dream”), Saterland Frisian Droom (“dream”), West Frisian dream (“dream”), Dutch droom (“dream”), German Traum (“dream”), Limburgish Droum (“dream”), Luxembourgish Dram (“dream”), Yiddish טרוים (
adj
- Ideal; perfect.e.g.“Gonna drive back down where you once belonged / In the back of a dream car, twenty foot long” — 1975, David Bowie, “Golden Years”, in Station to Station:
noun
- Imaginary events seen in the mind while sleeping.e.g.“have a dream”
- A hope or wish.e.g.“have a dream”
- A visionary scheme; a wild conceit; an idle fancy.e.g.“live in a dream”
verb
- To see imaginary events in one's mind while sleeping.e.g.“Although people primarily dream during the REM phase of sleeping, they can dream during non-REM sleep as well.”
- To hope, to wish.e.g.“Lucy dreams of becoming a scientist when she grows up.”
- To daydream.e.g.“Stop dreaming and get back to work.”
- To envision as an imaginary experience (usually when asleep).e.g.“I dreamed a vivid dream last night.”
- To consider the possibility (of).e.g.“I wouldn't dream of snubbing you in public.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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