American Dream

plural American Dreams · alternative American dream

1. idiomaticThe ideal stressing egalitarianism and that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve material prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.

   Our confidence is back. And the American dream is surging —bigger and better than ever before.

   2025 March 5, Naomi Lim, quoting Donald Trump, “Trump to say America’s ‘momentum’ is back after Biden’s ‘mess’”, in Washington Examiner

   5 more examples

   They are not racists or sick; they are not guilty of the crime that plagues the land. They are black and they are white —they're native born and foreign born—they're young and they're old. […] They give drive to the spirit of America. They give lift to the American Dream.

   1968 August 8, Richard Nixon, Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, Miami Beach, Florida

   If America has stood for anything unique in the history of the world, it has been for the American dream, the belief in the common man and the insistence upon his having, as far as possible, equal opportunity in every way with the rich one.

   1931, James Truslow Adams, The Epic Of America, Boston: Little, Brown, And Company, page 135

   But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.

   1931, James Truslow Adams, The Epic Of America, Boston: Little, Brown, And Company, Epilogue, page 404

   “The whole notion of the American dream,” said Frank Levy, an M.I.T. economist, “described a mass upward mobility that is just a lot harder to achieve right now.”

   2012 October 24, David Leonhardt, quoting Frank Levy, “Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Now, a new crop of Republican candidates and elected officials are using the phrase in a different way, invoking the same promise but arguing in speeches, ads and mailings that the American dream is dying or in danger, threatened by what they see as rampant crime, unchecked illegal immigration, burdensome government regulations and liberal social policies.

   2022 August 21, Jazmine Ulloa, “How a Storied Phrase Became a Partisan Battleground”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

plural American dreams

1. Alternative letter-case form of American Dream.