idealization
(aɪdiːəlaɪˈzeɪʃən)
[f. idealize + -ation; cf. F. idéalisation (Littré).]
The action of idealizing or fact of being idealized.
| 1796 W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. II. 466 Is this irony?..Or poetical idealization? 1853 De Quincey Autobiog. Sk. Wks. I. 54 The devotion gave grandeur and idealisation to the sorrow. 1875 Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims i. 58 Our overpraise and idealization of famous masters. 1883 Fairbairn City of God iii. i. (1886) 233 They were not finely susceptible sons of genius and culture, imaginative men, capable of acts of splendid idealization. |
b. A particular or concrete instance of this; an idealized representation.
| 1855 Fraser's Mag. LI. 702 This bust..is a frank idealization. 1870 H. Macmillan Bible Teach. Pref. 13 Poets and artists teach us by their beautiful idealizations that the objects around us are not mere objects of sense. |