idealist
/ʌɪˈdɪəlɪst
/noun
1A person who is guided more by ideals than by practical considerations: he came to power with the reputation of a left-wing idealist...
- A materialist may have no more difficulty with idea or pattern than an idealist has with hardware.
- What the program did do was make me wonder about the hazards of being an idealist.
- A corner of government opened itself to young idealists.
Synonyms
utopian, visionary, wishful thinker, pipe-dreamer, fantasist, fantasizer, romantic, romanticist, romancer, castle-builder, Walter Mitty, Don Quixote, dreamer, daydreamer, impractical person, unrealistic person
rare fantast, reverist
2 Philosophy A person who believes in the theory of idealism: Hegel described himself as an absolute idealist...
- For Rorty, an idealist is someone who accepts a coherence theory of truth.
- The greatest of philosophical idealists, the Greek Plato, founded around 25 centuries ago the first Socialist utopian system.
- Phenomenalists, or idealists generally, will reply that realism is mistaken or even incoherent.
