visionary

Etymology

It is formed from English vision + -ary,^[2][3][4][5] and the OED compares French visionnaire, Italian visionario and Spanish visionario.^[2] Johnson derived it from the French word.^[6] Vision is from Anglo-Norman visioun, vision, from Latin vīsiō (“act of seeing, sight, thing seen”), from videō (“to see”), from Proto-Indo-European *weid- (“to see”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the nature of a vision, seen or grasped in a vision: 1648, in Robert Boyle's Seraphic Love.^[2][7] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1640s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Within a few years the adjective was also used of people able to see visions, in Hobbes's Leviathan (1651).^[2][3] From there it moved toward the unreal: seen only in a vision, phantom (1697, in Dryden's Virgil),^[2] and of people, given to fanciful and impractical views, in Swift (1712).^[2] Swift's Modest Proposal (1729) has it of schemes that cannot be carried out,^[2] and Etymonline dates "apt to act on visions as if realities" to 1727.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "affected by phantoms" and "imaginary; not real".^[6] The noun followed about 1700, both for a person who has visions and for one who indulges in impractical fantasies;^[3] the OED dates the first to 1706 and the second to before 1719, in Addison.^[2] The favourable sense, far-sighted and full of foresight, was a transferred use of "able to see visions" for both adjective and noun,^[4] and modern dictionaries put it first.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 1648 – of the nature of a vision.^[2][7]
• 1651 – able to see visions, in Hobbes.^[2]
• 1697 – seen only in a vision; unreal, phantom.^[2]
• 1706 – noun, one who has visions.^[2]
• 1712 – given to fanciful and impractical views.^[2]
• before 1719 – noun, one who indulges in fantastic schemes.^[2]
• 1729 – of schemes, impossible to carry out.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having or showing foresight and bold, imaginative ideas about the future: a visionary architect.^[8][9][4]
2. Given to seeing visions, prophecies or revelations.^[8][7][2]
3. Of plans or ideas: idealistic but impossible to carry out; utopian.^[8][9][2]
4. Existing only in the imagination; illusory or unreal.^[8][2]
5. Of, like, or seen in a vision.^[9][2]

Noun

1. A person with foresight and original ideas about the future: The company was founded by a visionary who saw the value of solar power.^[4][9]
2. A person who sees visions; a seer or prophet.^[7][2][4]
3. A person who indulges in impractical schemes or fancies; a dreamer.^[7][2][4]

Word family

• visionariness
• nonvisionary
• unvisionary

Related words

• vision
• visual
• visible
• video
• wise

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins