Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See reverie.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Same as reverie.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of reverie.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an abstracted state of absorption
  • noun absentminded dreaming while awake

Etymologies

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Examples

  • To give an old woman only a chair and a bed, to leave her no cupboard in which her treasures may be stowed, not only that she may take them out when she desires occupation, but that their mind may dwell upon them in moments of revery, is to reduce living almost beyond the limit of human endurance.

    Twenty Years at Hull-House, With Autobiographical Notes 1910

  • Adrian mused a moment; and the result of his revery was a determination to delay for another sun his departure to Palestrina -- to take advantage of the nature of the revel, and to join the masquerade.

    Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • Perhaps he had tired himself of rhymes; or perhaps the mechanism of verse-making had been replaced by that kind of sentiment, or that kind of revery, which is common to the temperaments of those who indulge in verse-making.

    Kenelm Chillingly — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • Perhaps he had tired himself of rhymes; or perhaps the mechanism of verse-making had been replaced by that kind of sentiment, or that kind of revery, which is common to the temperaments of those who indulge in verse-making.

    Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 01 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • Dickinson or no, the idea of "revery" in place of the "reverend" is very pleasing.

    If you were getting married, would you want a wedding? Ann Althouse 2009

  • When I made a fish soup in the French style soupe de poisson, D sat there in a kind of revery, like he was communicating with God and when he finished simply told me it was very good.

    At My Table 2006

  • When I made a fish soup in the French style soupe de poisson, D sat there in a kind of revery, like he was communicating with God and when he finished simply told me it was very good.

    Archive 2006-07-01 2006

  • She would spend hours in this kind of revery, in the large unfurnished parlor, at our own house at Lavenham.

    Memoirs, Correspondence and Poetical Remains of Jane Taylor 1832

  • Fang learns too that he must forage for his food, so he becomes a clever thief. 27 And during his revery (to make the parallels with Buck more trite than they already are), he wanders to the edge of the forest and stands “and listens to something calling him far and away.”

    Le Milieu, Le Moment, La Race: Literary Naturalism in Jack London's White Fang 2010

  • At break of day it came whooping across the fields to spoil my pleasant morning revery.

    MOON-FACE 2010

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  • To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—

    One clover, and a bee,

    And revery.

    The revery alone will do

    If bees are few.

    - Emily Dickinson

    January 21, 2011