VISIONARY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does visionary mean? 

• VISIONARY (noun)
  The noun VISIONARY has 2 senses:

1. a person given to fanciful speculations and enthusiasms with little regard for what is actually possible

2. a person with unusual powers of foresight

  Familiarity information: VISIONARY used as a noun is rare.

• VISIONARY (adjective)
  The adjective VISIONARY has 1 sense:

1. not practical or realizable; speculative

  Familiarity information: VISIONARY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VISIONARY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person given to fanciful speculations and enthusiasms with little regard for what is actually possible

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("visionary" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "visionary"):

dreamer; idealist (someone guided more by ideals than by practical considerations)

Derivation:

visionary (not practical or realizable; speculative)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person with unusual powers of foresight

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

illusionist; seer; visionary

Hypernyms ("visionary" is a kind of...):

intellect; intellectual (a person who uses the mind creatively)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "visionary"):

anticipant; anticipator (one who anticipates)

diviner (someone who claims to discover hidden knowledge with the aid of supernatural powers)

fantast; futurist (someone who predicts the future)

forecaster; predictor; prognosticator; soothsayer (someone who makes predictions of the future (usually on the basis of special knowledge))

• VISIONARY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not practical or realizable; speculative

Synonyms:

airy; impractical; Laputan; visionary; windy

Context example:

visionary schemes for getting rich

Similar:

utopian (characterized by or aspiring to impracticable perfection)

Derivation:

vision (a vivid mental image)

visionary (a person given to fanciful speculations and enthusiasms with little regard for what is actually possible)

 Context examples 

Much to your dismay, management won’t be interested in visionary ideas or sweet touches you feel can make a project better.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that I seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school without natural regret.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride's who had melted in air.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the Academy, as to acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

This observational technique was first proposed by the visionary English scientist John Michell in 1783, but it has only become feasible with recent technological improvements in telescopes and detectors.

(Unpredicted stellar black hole discovered by astronomers, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Forget visionary woe, and think only of real happiness!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In March, with most of the solar system in earth signs, you will need to be practical when offering ideas, rather than be at your usual visionary self.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

There are the names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution, the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union; and there is the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I must freely confess, that since my last return, some corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this kingdom: But I have now done with all such visionary schemes for ever.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It was as if I had heard a summons from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced, "Come over and help us!"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)