reverie

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A state of dreaming while awake; a loose or irregular train of thought; musing or meditation; daydream.

   If you rouse from your reverie, you are restless and agitated; your eye wanders round in one perpetual search; and if, perchance, as has happened once or twice, he has only passed in the distance, your eye brightens, your cheek flushes crimson, and your whole frame quivers with uncontrollable emotion!

2. 2
   noun

   An extravagant conceit of the imagination; a vision.

   If the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool; There are infinite reveries , numberless extravagancies , and a perpetual train of vanities , which pass through both .

3. 3
   verb

   To daydream.

   By this time the mouth begins to feel uneasy—I pick another cheroot from Cotton’s last box, and walk up and down reverie-ing as before.

4. 4
   noun

   an abstracted state of absorption

Simplified etymology

Reverie entered English in the late Middle Ages from the French word represented today by rêver, “to dream.” The earlier French forms probably go back to re- combined with an unrecorded post-classical Latin exvagare, “wander” or “roam.”

From Middle French reverie (“revelry, drunkenness”), from Old French resverie, from resver (“to dream, to rave”), of uncertain origin. Compare rave.

Topics

External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary