ideal

About 38.90 uses per million words.

Meaning

1. adjective Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea.
2. adjective Existing only in the mind; conceptual, imaginary.
3. adjective Optimal; being the best possibility.
4. adjective Perfect, flawless, having no defects.
5. adjective Teaching or relating to the doctrine of idealism.

   the ideal theory or philosophy

6. adjective Not actually present, but considered as present when limits at infinity are included.

   ideal point

7. noun A perfect standard of beauty, intellect etc., or a standard of excellence to aim at.
8. noun A two-sided ideal; a subset of a ring which is closed under both left and right multiplication by elements of the ring.

   Let ℤ be the ring of integers and let 2ℤ be its ideal of even integers. Then the quotient ring ℤ/2ℤ is a Boolean ring.

Similar words

perfect paragon idealistic utopian abstract apotheosis nonpareil saint nonesuch nonsuch

Often followed by

of for and is in gas conditions to that

Word family

far from ideal idealless ideals