Pipe Dream
Noun · Slang & Abbreviations
Definitions
An idea that sounds attractive but is unrealistic given the actual constraints. In engineering slang, calling something a pipe dream usually means the ambition has drifted well ahead of budget, staffing, or technical reality.
In plain English: An appealing idea that is not realistically achievable under the real conditions.
Example: "A zero-downtime rewrite with no compatibility layer was a pipe dream once the team mapped the real client diversity they still had in production."