reverie

English

Alternative forms

• rêverie
• revery

Pronunciation

• enPR: rĕʹvə-rē, IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛvəɹi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Etymology 1

From French rêverie.

Noun

reverie (countable and uncountable, plural reveries)

1. A state of dreaming while awake; a loose or irregular train of thought; musing or meditation; daydream.
   • 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:

     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)‎:

     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.

   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

See also

• build castles in the air
• woolgather

Etymology 2

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

Noun

reverie (plural reveries)

1. (archaic) A caper, a frolic; merriment.

Further reading

• daydream on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Old French

Noun

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

1. Alternative form of resverie

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French rêverie.

Noun

reverie f (plural reverii)

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

Declension

See also

• visare