ask for the moon

Idioms and Phrases

Make an unreasonable demand, request the unattainable, as in $1,000 for her birthday? Mary might as well be asking for the moon . This hyperbolic idiom appeared in the mid-1800s in slightly different form. Charles Dickens had it as cry for the moon (in Bleak House , 1852) and William Makepeace Thackeray as wish for the moon (in Lovell the Widower , 1860). Today ask is the most common version.