reverie

plural reveries · alternative rêverie · alternative revery

1. countableuncountableA state of dreaming while awake; a loose or irregular train of thought; musing or meditation; daydream.First known use 1657

   we sat / But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, […]

   1847, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess, Canto VII, lines 107-108

   5 more examples

   If you rouse from your reverie, you are restless and agitated; your eye wanders round in one perpetual search; and if, perchance, as has happened once or twice, he has only passed in the distance, your eye brightens, your cheek flushes crimson, and your whole frame quivers with uncontrollable emotion!

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Conversation after Breakfast”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 77

   Your reverie is over: nothing bright can last, not even dreams; and so your figures are all gone, your fairy realm obliterated - nothing lives but the recollection of a shadow!

   1854, John Esten Cooke, The Youth of Jefferson, Or, A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764, page 129

   Within the branching shade of Reverie / Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be / ⁠Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd.

   1899, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Day-Dream”, in Pictures & poems

   He fell into a reverie, a most dangerous state of mind for a chauffeur, since a fall into reverie on the part of a driver may mean a fall into a ravine on the part of the machine.

   1913, Robert Barr, chapter 3, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad

   Even the blithely unselfconscious Homer is more than a little freaked out by West’s private reverie, and encourages his spawn to move slowly away without making eye contact with the crazy man.

   2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), archived from the original on 26 Oct 2012

   Synonyms: castles in Spain, castle in the air, castle in the skies, daydream, daydreaming, oneirism

2. countableuncountableAn extravagant conceit of the imagination; a vision.

   If the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool; There are infinite reveries , numberless extravagancies , and a perpetual train of vanities , which pass through both .

   November 17, 1711, Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 225

present singular third person reveries · participle present reverying · participle past reveried · past reveried

1. intransitiveTo daydream.

   He reveried on.

   1980, Peter Van Greenaway, The Dissident: A Novel (Gollancz Suspense), London: Gollancz, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   By this time the mouth begins to feel uneasy—I pick another cheroot from Cotton’s last box, and walk up and down reverie-ing as before.

   1832 October, [John Gibson Lockhart], “Noctes Ambrosianae. No. LXIII.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXXII, number CC, Edinburgh: William Blackwood; London: T[homas] Cadell, […], page 694

   So now the dream of all my life is realized, and I have seen snow mountains! When I was quite a little child of eight years old I used to reverie about them, and when I heard the name of the snow-covered Sierra de la Summa Paz (perfect peace) the idea was completed; and I thenceforth always thought of eternal snow and perfect peace together, and longed to see the one and drink in the other.

   1869 June 12, Frances Ridley Havergal, “(1861—1869.) […]”, in M[aria] V[ernon] G[raham] H[avergal], editor, Memorials of Frances Ridley Havergal, London: James Nisbet & Co., […], published 1880, pages 97–98

   During my twelfth and thirteenth years I often reveried in school, or less often at night, with penis quite erect—imagining perhaps myself in company with several of the girls that most attracted me on a Pacific Island, and I would feel and see myself again and again in sexual intercourse.

   1920, W[alter] F[ranklin] Robie, “A Sexual Autobiography”, in Sex and Life: What the Experienced Should Teach and What the Inexperienced Should Learn, Boston, Mass.: Richard G[orham] Badger, The Gorham Press, part I, section “Love Reverie and Sex Imagery; Sex Education”, page 70

   In her old days she’ll either be Madame Representativewoman from the same said X-town, or a cheerful old philanderer, pardon me, I mean philanthropist, living in seclusion and reverying in the shades of the past.

   1936 March, Elmer D. Johnson, “Soliloquy on a Forgotten Town: What Will Become of It?”, in Charles A. Poe, editor, The Carolina Magazine, volume LXV, number 6, Chapel Hill, N.C.: Publications Union Board of the University of North Carolina, page twenty-seven, column 1

plural reveries

1. archaicA caper, a frolic; merriment.First known use mid 14th Century