dream up

verb

1. tr, adverb to invent by ingenuity and imagination

   to dream up an excuse for leaving

Idioms and Phrases

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]

Example Sentences

For Samuel, music is a vital organ of the whole storytelling body; he dreams up character themes as he’s writing the script, and his characters even hum those tunes onscreen.

From Los Angeles Times

‘I have no idea,” replies Fisher, “And you need so many of them – and then you dream up a password and it tells you, this is not good enough.”

From BBC

Beck and Woods don’t have to dream up something alien when these kinds of garden-variety predators are common.

From Los Angeles Times

She dressed as a fake weight loss drug, which was dreamt up in a recent South Park episode that joked about her body positivity message.

From BBC

It was Mr O’Neill who, at the turn of the century, dreamt up the acronym "Bric" for four emerging economies he believed should be "brought into the centre of global policy making".

From BBC

Related Words

• contrive
• devise
• hatch
• invent