n. & v.
--n.
1. a a series of pictures or events in the mind of a sleeping person. b the act or time of seeing this. c (in full waking dream) a similar experience of one awake.
2 a day-dream or fantasy.
3 an ideal, aspiration, or ambition, esp. of a nation.
4 a beautiful or ideal person or thing.
5 a state of mind without proper perception of reality (goes about in a dream).
--v. (past and past part. dreamt or dreamed)
1. intr. experience a dream.
2 tr. imagine in or as if in a dream.
3 (usu. with neg.) a intr. (foll. by of) contemplate the possibility of, have any conception or intention of (would not dream of upsetting them). b tr. (often foll. by that + clause) think of as a possibility (never dreamt that he would come).
4 tr. (foll. by away) spend (time) unprofitably.
5 intr. be inactive or unpractical.
6 intr. fall into a reverie.
Phrases and idioms:
dream-time Austral. the alcheringa. dream up imagine, invent. like a dream colloq. easily, effortlessly.
Derivatives:
dreamful adj. dreamless adj. dreamlike adj.
Etymology: ME f. OE dream joy, music