October 10, 2009

reverie

\REV-uh-ree\ , noun:

1.A state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.

2.A daydream.

3.A fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea.

4.Music. An instrumental composition of a vague and dreamy character.

Quotes:

Walking seems to have become Rousseau's chosen mode of being because within a walk he is able to live in thought and reverie, to be self-sufficient, and thus to survive the world he feels has betrayed him.

-- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

He was pulled out of his reverie by the buzzing of his cell phone.

-- Robert O'Harrow, No Place to Hide

From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.

-- William Cowper, The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 188.

Origin:

Reverie is from Middle English, revelry, from Old French, from rever, to dream.