I. -rē, -ri adjective
1.
a. : capable of seeing visions : disposed or likely to see visions
a visionary prophet
people call you visionary … you see things before they happen — S.M.Crothers
b. : disposed to indulgence in reverie or fancy : full of imaginative conceptions : apt to accept and act on fancies as if realities : dreamy , impractical
one visionary explorer … devoted a season to gold digging — American Guide Series: Massachusetts
visionary and sentimental persons — Willa Cather
visionary in expecting … enough popular support — E.S.Morgan
2.
a. : having the nature of a vision : beheld or existing in a vision or dream : illusory , phantom
beheld … through so dim a medium that she looked visionary — Nathaniel Hawthorne
clutched at some visionary object in the air — Thomas DeQuincey
b. : having no basis or justification in reality : incapable of being realized or achieved : utopian
a visionary scheme
discussions of monorail systems seemed academic, if not visionary — Fortune
c. : existing only in the imagination : unreal
those who hazard a real blessing for some visionary good — Encore
3. : of, relating to, or characterized by vision or by visions
able to endow a rapid sketch of some trees seen by a roadside with … visionary power — Stuart Preston
the visionary hour — James Thomson †1748
Synonyms: see imaginary
II. noun
( -es )
1. : a person who sees visions : seer
too clever to place any faith in the dreams of visionaries … knew all the priestcraft and fakery of his kind — Bruce Nelson
2. : one that relies or tends to rely on dreams and fancies or on imaginary or ideal conceptions or projects having little basis in reality : an impractical person : dreamer , enthusiast
ridiculed as a visionary when he first proposed the plan
realized what a hopeless visionary he was — Cosmopolitan
III. adjective
: having or marked by foresight and imagination
a visionary leader
a visionary invention