idea
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /aɪˈdɪə/
note: Southern England, triggers Intrusive R
ipa: [ɑjˈdɪː(‿ɹ)]
ipa: /aɪˈdi.ə/
note: US, Appalachia, r-epenthesis
ipa: /aːˈdɪɹ/
ipa: /aɪˈdiə/
ipa: [ɑeˈdiə]
ipa: [-ˈdeə]
ipa: /aɪˈdiː/
ipa: /ˈaɪdi/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈaɪɖɪa/
rhymes: -ɪə
rhymes: -iːə
Forms: form: ideas
form: ideæ
topics: philosophy
human-sciences
sciences
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin idea (“a (Platonic) idea; archetype”), from Ancient Greek ἰδέα (idéa, “notion, pattern”), from εἴδω (eídō, “I see”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know; see”). Cognate with French idée. Doublet of idée. Related to idol, idolum, and eidolon.
Senses: examples: text: The idea that the same experiments always get the same results, no matter who performs them, is one of the cornerstones of science’s claim to objective truth. If a systematic campaign of replication does not lead to the same results, then either the original research is flawed (as the replicators claim) or the replications are (as many of the original researchers on priming contend). Either way, something is awry.
ref: 2013 October 19, “Trouble at the lab”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8858:
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
sciences
glosses: An abstract archetype of a given thing, compared to which real-life examples are seen as imperfect approximations; pure essence, as opposed to actual examples.
glosses: The conception of someone or something as representing a perfect example; an ideal.
examples: text: The remembrance whereof (which yet I beare deepely imprinted in my minde) representing me her visage and Idea so lively and so naturally, doth in some sort reconcile me unto her.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 6, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
glosses: The form or shape of something; a quintessential aspect or characteristic.
examples: text: The mere idea of you is enough to excite me.
glosses: An image of an object that is formed in the mind or recalled by the memory.
examples: text: Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: Ideas won't go to jail.
ref: 1952, Alfred Whitney Griswold, (Please provide the book title or journal name):
glosses: More generally, any result of mental activity; a thought, a notion; a way of thinking.
examples: text: I have an idea of how we might escape.
glosses: A conception in the mind of something to be done; a plan for doing something, an intention.
examples: text: Yeah, that's the idea.
text: My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend.
ref: 2013 June 1, “End of the peer show”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 71:
glosses: A purposeful aim or goal; intent
examples: text: He had the wild idea that if he leant forward a little, he might be able to touch the mountain-top.
glosses: A vague or fanciful notion; a feeling or hunch; an impression.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A musical theme or melodic subject.
Synonyms: sense: mental transcript, image, or picture
word: image
Derived terms: absolute idea
abstract idea
all the gear and no idea
buck up one's ideas
business idea
counteridea
fixed idea
get the idea
have no idea
have the first idea
idea art
idea'd
idea dinner
ideaed
ideaful
idea future
ideagenous
idea hamster
ideahood
idealess
idea man
idea monger
ideamonger
idea of reference
idea pot
ideascape
ideathon
idea virus
life-idea
memory-idea
monoideism
mother-idea
no idea
nonidea
not have the faintest idea
not have the first idea
one-idea
overvalued idea
over-valued idea
received idea
sense-idea
simple idea
subidea
the very idea
unideaed
war of ideas
what's the big idea
Related terms: ideal
idealism
idealist
ideality
idealize
ideate
ideatum
ideocracy
ideologue
ideology
in idea