pie in the sky
- 1A fanciful, unrealistic, or ludicrous idea, or the illusory promise of a hoped-for outcome that is unlikely ever to happen.
Voters are tired of politicians who offer pie in the sky instead of a workable budget.
Her plan to retire at thirty on a teacher's salary struck her friends as pie in the sky.
Note
A parody gave English this phrase: the Swedish-American labor activist Joe Hill wrote “The Preacher and the Slave” (1911) to mock the Salvation Army hymn “In the Sweet By-and-By.” The jab at religion survives in John Lennon’s “I Found Out” (1970), beside Hare Krishna. As a noun it takes no article and no plural: people go looking for pie in the sky, or find a plan sort of pie in the sky.
- 2Describing a dream, goal, or scheme that is impractical, out of touch with reality, and unlikely ever to come true.
Critics dismissed the senator's pie-in-the-sky promises of free college with no new taxes.
The investors liked the team but found its plan to replace every city bus within a year too pie-in-the-sky to fund.
Similarunrealistic, impractical, fanciful, utopian, idealistic
Oppositerealistic, practical, feasible
Note
Hyphens turn the noun into an adjective, and they stay wherever it stands: a pie-in-the-sky goal, demos that are very pie-in-the-sky. It compares with more and most, as when Mark Malloch Brown called halving poverty “the most pie-in-the-sky goal imaginable.” A quick test: if very or most can grade it, it is the adjective and takes hyphens; as the thing people go looking for, it is the noun and stays open.
Practice
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Origins
This use comes from the noun "pie in the sky."
From Joe Hill's 1911 labor song "The Preacher and the Slave", a parody of the hymn "In the Sweet By-and-By" mocking promises of reward in heaven: "You'll get pie in the sky when you die."