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pie in the sky

/paɪ ɪn ðə skaɪ/
IPA guide

If something is said to be pie in the sky, it means it's pleasant but not realistic. Visiting every planet in the solar system by your thirtieth birthday is a great dream, but it could be described as pie in the sky.

The phrase comes from a 1911 song by Joe Hill, an important labor rights organizer in the United States: "Work and pray, live on hay, you’ll get pie in the sky when you die." The song ridicules the notion that people should accept their current poor work conditions for a later reward — after death. It's come to mean anything desirable but unrealistic.

Definitions of pie in the sky
  1. idiom
    something that is nice to think about but is not likely or realistic
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