dream
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: drēm
ipa: /dɹiːm/
ipa: [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷiːm]
ipa: [d͡ʒɹʷiːm]
rhymes: -iːm
Forms: form: dreams
form: dreame
Etymology: From Middle English drem, from Old English drēam (“music, joy”), from Proto-West Germanic *draum, from Proto-Germanic *draumaz, from earlier *draugmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrowgʰ-mos, from *dʰrewgʰ- (“to deceive, injure, damage”).
The sense of "dream", though not attested in Old English, may still have been present (compare Old Saxon drōm (“bustle, revelry, jubilation", also "dream”)), and was undoubtedly reinforced later in Middle English by Old Norse draumr (“dream”), from same Proto-Germanic root.
Cognate with Scots dreme (“dream”), Saterland Frisian Droom (“dream”), West Frisian dream (“dream”), Dutch droom (“dream”), German Traum (“dream”), Limburgish Droum (“dream”), Luxembourgish Dram (“dream”), Yiddish טרוים (troym, “dream”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål drøm, Faroese dreymur (“dream”), Icelandic draumur (“dream”), Norwegian Nynorsk draum (“dream”), Swedish dröm (“dream”). Related also to Old Norse draugr (“ghost, undead, spectre”), Dutch bedrog (“deception, deceit”), German Trug (“deception, illusion”).
more details
The derivation from Old English drēam is controversial, since the word itself is only attested in writing in its meaning of “joy, mirth, musical sound”. Possibly there was a separate word drēam meaning “images seen while sleeping”, which was avoided in literature due to potential confusion with the “joy” sense. Otherwise, the modern sense must have been borrowed from another Germanic language, most probably Old Norse. Since this is the common sense in all Germanic languages outside the British isles, a spontaneous development from “joy, mirth” to “dream” in Middle English is hardly conceivable. In Old Saxon, the cognate drōm did mean “dream”, but was a rare word.
Attested words for “sleeping vision” in Old English, both of which appeared in The Dream of the Rood, were mǣting (Middle English mæte, mete), from an unclear source, and swefn (Modern English sweven), from Proto-Germanic *swefnaz, from Proto-Indo-European *swepno-, *swep-; compare Ancient Greek ὕπνος (húpnos, “sleep”).
The verb is from Middle English dremen, possibly (see above) from Old English drīeman (“to make a joyous sound with voice or with instrument; rejoice; sing a song; play on an instrument”), from Proto-Germanic *draumijaną, *draugmijaną (“to be festive, dream, hallucinate”), from the noun. Cognate with Scots dreme (“to dream”), Saterland Frisian drööme (“to dream”), West Frisian dreame (“to dream”), Dutch dromen (“to dream”), German träumen (“to dream”), Luxembourgish dreemen (“to dream”), Yiddish טרוימען (troymen, “to dream”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål drømme (“to dream”), Faroese droyma (“to dream”), Icelandic dreyma (“to dream”), Norwegian Nynorsk drømma, drømme, drøyma, drøyme (“to dream”), Swedish drömma (“to dream, muse”).
Senses: examples: text: have a dream
text: scary dream
text: vivid dream
text: erotic dream
text: feel like a dream
text: be in a dream
text: Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes.
ref: 1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
ref: 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1:
text: And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
 The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
ref: 1982, “Mad World”, in Roland Orzabal (lyrics), The Hurting, performed by Tears for Fears:
synonyms: word: sweven
glosses: Imaginary events seen in the mind while sleeping.
examples: text: have a dream
text: fulfil a dream
text: harbour a dream
text: realize a dream
text: So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
ref: 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
ref: 1963 August 28, Martin Luther King, I have a Dream:
text: Ralph Wiggum is generally employed as a bottomless fount of glorious non sequiturs, but in “I Love Lisa” he stands in for every oblivious chump who ever deluded himself into thinking that with persistence, determination, and a pure heart he can win the girl of his dreams.
ref: 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”, in AV Club:
text: More likely than capture is death at the hands of Chinese border police. Killings like that of fifteen-year-old Yeshe Dundrub, shot at night in Saga County (Ch: Saga Xian) in November 1999, while fleeing with forty others to Nepal, are covered up when possible. (Dundrub, whose dream was to be a monk, died in a military hospital bed nine hours after he was shot.)
ref: 2010, Jonathan Green, Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet, 1st edition (Politics), PublicAffairs, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 33:
glosses: A hope or wish.
examples: text: live in a dream
text: wake up from a dream
text: impossible dream
text: a dream of bliss
text: the dream of his youth
text: There sober thought pursued the amusing theme,
 Till Fancy coloured it and formed a dream.
ref: c. 1735, Alexander Pope, John Donne's Satires Versified:
text: It is not, then, a mere dream, but a very real aim which they propose.
ref: 1870, John Shairp, Culture and Religion:
synonyms: vision
glosses: A visionary scheme; a wild conceit; an idle fancy.
Derived terms: African dream herb
American dream
beyond one's wildest dreams
cheese dream
daydream
dream board
dreamboat
dreambound
dreamcatcher
dream catcher
dreamchild
dream come true
dreamcore
dreamery
dream factory
dream feed
dreamfish
dreamful
dreamgirl
dreamhole
dream home
dream house
dreamish
dream job
dreamland
dreamless
dreamlet
dream life
dreamlife
dreamlike
dreamlining
dream list
dreammate
dream pop
dreamscape
dreamself
dream sequence
dreamsign
dreamsome
dreamster
dream team
dream trance
dream vision
dreamward
dreamware
dreamwork
dreamworker
dreamworld
dreamworthy
dreamwrapt
dreamy
dream yoga
fever dream
foredream
go like a dream
impossible dream
Indian's dream
in one's wildest dreams
interdream
in your dreams
in your wildest dreams
like a dream
live the dream
lucid dream
manic pixie dream girl
nightdream
nondream
pipe dream
teamwork makes the dream work
waking dream
wet dream
work like a dream