Word.ws English Dictionary

building castles in the air

building castles in the air is the present participle and gerund of build castles in the air.

Meaning of build castles in the air

Verb

build castles in the air (third-person singular simple present builds castles in the air, present participle building castles in the air, simple past and past participle built castles in the air or (archaic or poetic) builded castles in the air)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To have any desire, idea, or plan that is unlikely to be realized; to imagine visionary projects or schemes; to have an idle fancy or a pipe dream; to daydream.
    • Look you, Amanda, you may build castles in the air, "and fume, and fret, and grow thin and lean, and pale and ugly, if you please." But I tell you, no man worth having is true to his wife, or can be true to his wife, or ever was, or will be so.1696, John Vanbrugh, “The Relapse; or, Virtue in Danger. […]”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), London: Printed for the proprietors, under the Direction of John Bell, […]...

Questions about building castles in the air

What is building castles in the air the present participle and gerund of?
Building castles in the air is the present participle and gerund of build castles in the air.

Words near building castles in the air in the dictionary

  1. building air castles
  2. building and pest
  3. building block
  4. building blocks
  5. building bridges
  6. building castles in the air
  7. building character
  8. building code
  9. building codes
  10. building down
  11. building envelope

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: building castles in the air (page history and authors); build castles in the air (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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