# cloud nine

Pronunciation: say "KLOWD NYN" /ˈklaʊd ˈnaɪn/

## Idiom

1. A state of great happiness or elation, often in the phrase on cloud nine.
   - Simple: A feeling of being extremely happy. People often say they are "on cloud nine."
   - _After the team clinched the championship, the whole town seemed to be on cloud nine._
   - _The new parents drove home from the hospital on cloud nine, hardly noticing the traffic._
2. A state of fanciful or impractical thinking or dreaming, as in phrases like living on cloud nine. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: A state of dreaming or thinking about things that are not realistic or practical.
   - _Anyone who expects the budget to balance itself without cuts is living on cloud nine._
   - _Much of the report lives up on cloud nine, proposing rail lines the region could never afford._

## Origin

The origin of the sense 'a state of bliss' is uncertain, but it has been suggested that it comes from the first edition of the International Cloud Atlas (1896), which defined ten types of cloud and described the ninth, the cumulonimbus, as rising to 10 km (6.2 miles), the highest a cloud can be. The related expression 'cloud seven' may have come from confusing 'cloud nine' with 'seventh heaven'. The sense 'a state of fantastic or impractical dreaming or thinking' may come from confusing the first sense with the phrase 'head in the clouds'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cloud-nine (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).