Wiktionary

reverie

See also: rêverie

English

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WOTD – 31 December 2012, 31 December 2014

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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  • enPR: rĕʹvə-rē, IPA(key): /ˈɹɛvəɹi/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Etymology 1

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From French rêverie.

Noun

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reverie (countable and uncountable, plural reveries)

  1. A state of dreaming while awake; a loose or irregular train of thought; musing or meditation; daydream. [from 1657]
    • 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:
      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!
    • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess, Canto VII, lines 107-108:
      we sat / But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, […]
    • 1899, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Day-Dream”, in Pictures & poems:
      Within the branching shade of Reverie / Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be / ⁠Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd.
    • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 3, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎[1]:
      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.
    • 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)‎[2]:
      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.
    • 2019, YOHIO (lyrics and music), “My Nocturnal Serenade”, in A Pretty Picture In A Most Disturbing Way‎[3]:
      We were bound for eternity / Now I am lost inside this everlasting reverie / And I'm losing my mind
    Synonyms: castles in Spain, castle in the air, daydream, daydreaming, oneirism
  2. An extravagant conceit of the imagination; a vision.
    • November 17, 1711, Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 225
      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 .
Translations
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Verb

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reverie (third-person singular simple present reveries, present participle reverying, simple past and past participle reveried)

  1. To daydream.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 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:
      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.
    • 1980, Peter Van Greenaway, The Dissident: A Novel (Gollancz Suspense), London: Gollancz, →ISBN:
      He reveried on.
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Etymology 2

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From Middle French reverie (“revelry, drunkenness”), from Old French resverie, from resver (“to dream, to rave”), of uncertain origin. Compare rave.

Noun

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reverie (plural reveries)

  1. (archaic) A caper, a frolic; merriment. [mid 14th Century]

Further reading

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Old French

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Noun

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reverie oblique singular, f (oblique plural reveries, nominative singular reverie, nominative plural reveries)

  1. Alternative form of resverie

Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French rêverie.

Noun

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reverie f (plural reverii)

  1. reverie, any form of dreaming (e.g. daydreaming, dreaming, and thinking)

Declension

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singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative reverie reveria reverii reveriile
genitive-dative reverii reveriei reverii reveriilor
vocative reverie, reverio reveriilor

See also

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