dream up

English

Verb

dream up (third-person singular simple present dreams up, present participle dreaming up, simple past and past participle dreamed up or dreamt up)

1. To have an imaginative, unusual or foolish idea, to invent something unreal.
   • 1996, Steven H. Gale, Encyclopedia of British Humorists‎^[1], →ISBN:

     It's as if he were giving a performance of some character he's dreamed up, and his pale eyes wander in search of effect even in his apparently wildest moments.

   • 1999, John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, Sally Caudill, editors, Contemporary Rhetorical Theory‎^[2], →ISBN:

     I am not arguing that I can dream up any reality I like.

   • 2001, Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa‎^[3], →ISBN:

     Since he had no way of returning to his homeland, and since remembering it made him suffer, he dreamed up a homeland he'd never had, […]

   • 2010, Christopher Nolan, Inception (motion picture), spoken by Fischer (Cillian Murphy):

     Couldn't somebody have dreamt up a goddamn beach?

Translations

have an imaginative, unusual or foolish idea, invent something unreal

• Czech: vysnít si
• Finnish: keksiä (fi), luoda tyhjästä
• French: imaginer (fr), inventer (fr)
• Galician: figurar (gl), imaxinar (gl), inventar (gl)
• German: erträumen (de), sich ausmalen, sich ausdenken, zusammenspinnen (pejorative)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: finne på

• Polish: wyśnić (pl), zmyślić (pl)
• Russian: вы́думать (ru) pf (výdumatʹ), выду́мывать (ru) impf (vydúmyvatʹ)

Anagrams

• Premuda