- Home
- Idioms
- dream up
dream up
dream something up
Fig. to invent something; to fabricate something. (The something can be the word something.) I don't know what to do, but I'll dream something up. Please dream up a solution for this problem.
dream up something
also dream something up to invent or imagine something She's dreamed up a great new way to waste time. The Gerbils is an odd name for a baseball team - who dreamed it up?
Related vocabulary: think up somethingdream up
Invent, concoct, as in Count on her to dream up some explanation for her absence. This expression replaced the somewhat earlier dream out. [c. 1940]
dream up
v. To concoct something, especially a plan or idea that is viewed as impractical: We dreamed up a plan to take over the company. They dreamed a plan up that would allow them to retire next year. What happens in the book is more magical than anything I could dream up.