Meanings
- idiomaticnot comparableIn an unknown, hypothetical, or very distant place.
Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high, There's a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby
1939, Judy Garland, Over the Rainbow1 more example
Perhaps somewhere over the rainbow there is a land where equality and justice are colorblind, where no one is the other, where no one by virtue of race, gender, or sexual orientation is an outcast or an anomaly.
1996, Ann DuCille, Skin Trade
Origin
Popularized from the song Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland, written by Harold Arlen (music) and E. Y. Harburg (lyrics) for the film The Wizard of Oz
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
somewhere over the rainbow. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/somewhere%20over%20the%20rainbow
“somewhere over the rainbow.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/somewhere%20over%20the%20rainbow. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “somewhere over the rainbow,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/somewhere%20over%20the%20rainbow.
Source: somewhere over the rainbow on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.