idealist

[ ahy-dee-uh-list ]

noun

1. a person who cherishes or pursues high or noble principles, purposes, goals, etc.

   Synonyms: utopianist, visionary, reformer, perfectionist, optimist

   Antonyms: cynic, skeptic, pragmatist

2. a visionary or impractical person.

   Synonyms: stargazer, dreamer, romanticist, romantic

   Antonyms: materialist, realist

3. a person who represents things as they might or should be rather than as they are:

   My friend is an idealist, who somehow thinks that we always agree.

4. a writer or artist who treats subjects imaginatively.
5. a person who accepts the doctrines of philosophical idealism, as by representing things in an ideal form, or as they might or should be rather than as they are.

adjective

1. of or relating to idealism or idealists; idealistic.

Other Words From

• anti-i·deal·ist noun adjective
• hyper·i·deal·ist noun
• super·i·deal·ist noun adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of idealist¹

First recorded in 1695–1705; ideal + -ist

Example Sentences

Americans, in Ghazvinian’s telling, morph from high-minded idealists to reckless Cold Warriors as the United States plays its own version of the Great Game, manipulating Iran’s politics to its advantage.

From Washington Post

He’s one of the idealists, a vendor who considers himself part artist, part entrepreneur.

From Washington Post

Walter presents Gig as a charming idealist so handsome he turns heads on the street.

From Washington Post

It’s no crime to be an idealist, as long you’re a realist about your idealism.

From MIT Technology Review

Xian Lang was, we learn, once like Mulan, a young idealist who wanted to use her supernatural strength and acumen for the highest of purposes.

From Vox

He was a dreamer, an idealist, grounded in the reality he observed around him.

From The Daily Beast

It is not an idealist, not a romantic call to ethics of conviction as opposed to ethics of responsibility.

From The Daily Beast

He was an “idealist and a realist at the same time,” said his close friend, the British Diplomat Frank Roberts.

From The Daily Beast

The hardheaded politician devoted to step-by- step progress was transformed in death into the consummate liberal idealist.

From The Daily Beast

“It is an ideological—no, not ideological, but I am an idealist still, and I think that I can win,” he said.

From The Daily Beast

I can tell you, my dear idealist—you have not changed a particle, by the way—that there is another side you have never seen.

From Project Gutenberg

He was a stubborn idealist, and having found something at last to admire he purposed to hug it.

From Project Gutenberg

He was soon at full speed again, on his futile race: a hapless idealist in pursuit of lost dreams.

From Project Gutenberg

Greater still is he, who is not idealist only, but saint and hero, and in his life bears witness to the truth he teaches.

From Project Gutenberg

But whereas as a national poet he was a flattering idealist, he was as a personal poet an uncompromising realist.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• dreamer
• optimist
• visionary