| 释义 |
pie in the sky colloq. (orig. U.S.).
[see pie n.2 4.]
A prospect, often illusory, of future happiness, esp. as a reward in heaven for virtue or suffering on earth; an extravagant promise that is unlikely to be fulfulled. Also (with hyphens) attrib. Hence pie-in-the-skyer, one who puts forward a prospect or promise of this kind.
1911J. Hill in G. M. Smith Joe Hill (1969) i. 20 You'll get pie in the sky when you die. 1926Amer. Mercury Jan. 65/1 Pie in the sky is a somewhat cynical reference to the bourgeois heaven. 1939N. Monsarrat This is Schoolroom iv. xviii. 426 Christianity..would end by backing the guns, blessing the flags, and preaching pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die. 1941Archit. Rev. LXXXIX. 117/1 Utopianism, or wishful-thinking, or pie-in-the-sky, or whatever we care to call it. 1951[see jam n.2 b]. 1951R. Hoggart Auden vi. 190 He is afraid that God will be just a woozy dream, pie-in-the-sky, to his subjects. 1958Times Lit. Suppl. 26 Dec. 750/4 Rightly mistrusting the idea of ‘pie in the sky’, he [sc. the American] expects to have his reward here. 1959Sunday Express 30 Aug. 12/7 With the election moving remorselessly nearer, pie-in-the-sky days are here again. Everything our hearts could desire is promised us by politicians. 1960O. Manning Great Fortune vi. 79 Pie in the sky. Accept the condition it has pleased God to put you in. 1962Times 11 Oct. 10/5 General Eisenhower has attacked the Kennedy Administration as a ‘pie-in-the-sky’ Government. 1971Physics Bull. June 322/1 Is this just pie-in-the-sky dreaming about some utopian future where there will be no more pollution, poverty, malnutrition and similar afflictions? 1973Time 25 June 4/2 Exposing shenanigans, militants, self-servers and pie-in-the-skyers must be done, no matter how or by whom. 1975Listener 16 Jan. 89/1 Pie-in-the-sky wage claims. 1976E. Maclaren Nature of Belief iv. 34 The point is obvious when the argument for belief is as crude as some traditional pie-in-the-sky promises. 1977Undercurrents June-July 12/1 To expert the NHS to encompass all sorts of fringe or alternative practices whilst even the level of basic medical care that people want is unobtainable in some areas (abortion) is pie in the sky. |