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Showing results for idealize. Search instead for overidealizes.
Definitions

idealize

[ahy-dee-uh-lahyz] / aɪˈdi əˌlaɪz /
VERB
romanticize
Synonyms


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Historian Quinn Slobodian joins Felix Salmon to discuss the tech billionaires who idealize a world without democracy.

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2025

It’s easy to idealize the ’60s, but I wonder how it compares to today, in terms of your ability to get things done as an activist?

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2023

“What’s important is to not make a myth or idealize anyone, including our founder. If we made a myth out of him, we were wrong,” she said.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2023

Penjing, as it developed over the centuries, didn’t idealize nature but rather portrayed — or, as some bonsai scholars suggest, exaggerated — its strange, expansive beauty.

From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2021

Not much to idealize when you know your aunt is crying herself to sleep next door and nothing can be done.

From "Where Things Come Back" by John Corey Whaley

Called "splitting," Behr defined this as "the person devalues and idealizes you or others."

From Salon ● Jan. 26, 2023

It’s an amusing curiosity as well as a commentary on a nation that idealizes both the open road and an angry duck with a speech impediment.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 22, 2021

Nora idealizes Edmund’s “perfect” life — attending an elite school, working at high-paying tech jobs, living away from home — without realizing that he’s as unhappy as she is.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2021

Because he was the only straight, cis man I ever dated, she idealizes him.

From Slate ● Jan. 7, 2021

Just as he idealizes Caroline, he paints the Loyers as the perfect mother and daughter.

From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman

In an idealized plasma containing only pure fusion fuel, the Cordey saddle occurs at approximately Q = 5.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2026

We would like to leave no moment uncaptured, would like to at least try to become pearly, hairless, omniscient idealized beings, even if this desire lurks somewhere beneath what we’d consciously admit.

From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2026

Worried about its future and often nostalgic for an idealized past, it's fair to say that much of America saw itself in Dolly Parton.

From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026

The staginess that sinks many of his other pictures portended a digital age where all images would trend toward idealized, Photoshopped perfection.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

Over the next several months, as it often happens, I managed to erase the story’s flaws from my memory, taking pride in a shadowy, idealized recollection of its virtues.

From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

This verdict is in keeping with the tenor of the last 50 years of classical scholarship, which has moved past—perhaps too far past—any idealizing visions of Pericles and Athens.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

“He’s trying to re-create his childhood and idealizing something that was less than ideal,” Cumberbatch said.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2024

“We have a way of idealizing and protecting auteurs and putting them on such a pedestal that they become untouchable,” says Godrèche of French attitudes about cinema.

From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2024

Narcissists will cycle through idealizing their victims and denigrating them in order to condition people to internalize their will and become extensions of themselves.

From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2021

Not a lot, but enough to keep a dreamer from idealizing the object of his long fascination.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor


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