Word.ws English Dictionary

reaching for the stars

reaching for the stars is the present participle of reach for the stars.

Meaning of reach for the stars

Verb

reach for the stars (third-person singular simple present reaches for the stars, present participle reaching for the stars, simple past and past participle reached for the stars)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To have high hopes; to be ambitious.
    • Tell Richard I saw the pictures that he sent for that feature on the female paratroopers and they're all so deeply unattractive. Is it impossible to find a lovely, slender, female paratrooper? Am I reaching for the stars here? Not really.2006, Aline Brosh McKenna, Lauren Weisberger, The Devil Wears Prada, spoken by Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)

Questions about reaching for the stars

What is reaching for the stars the present participle of?
Reaching for the stars is the present participle of reach for the stars.

Words near reaching for the stars in the dictionary

  1. reaching down
  2. reaching for
  3. reaching for the moon
  4. reaching for the skies
  5. reaching for the sky
  6. reaching for the stars
  7. reaching out
  8. reaching past
  9. reaching rock bottom
  10. reaching-post
  11. reaching-posts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reaching for the stars (page history and authors); reach for the stars (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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Cite this entry: “reaching for the stars.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reaching_for_the_stars. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.