Idealistic means guided by dreams of how the world should be. Young and idealistic, an idealistic plan, hopelessly idealistic.
It is admiring and patronising at once, depending on the speaker: calling somebody idealistic praises their aims and doubts their grasp of what is possible. It attaches to the young more than to anybody else. Note idealism, which in philosophy means something quite different — that reality is mental rather than material — and shares only the word.
1adjectiveidealisticGuided by dreams of how the world should be.
“As an idealistic young doctor, he believed he could end poverty in his town.”
synonyms: utopian, starry-eyed
idealistic is a quality of high ideals.
Idealist plus -ic, from ideal, from Latin idea, from Greek idea, a form or pattern. Idea and idol come from the same seeing.
Latin
idealis — ideal
French
idéaliste
English
idealist
English, today
idealistic
From idealist + -ic or ideal + -istic. idealist comes from French idéaliste, from Latin idealis (“ideal”), from Latin idea (“idea”), equivalent to ideal + -ist.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA