Meaning
Something pleasant that is promised or hoped for but is unrealistic and unlikely ever to materialize; a fanciful reward or empty promise. Usually appears in constructions like 'promises of pie in the sky' or the full proverbial line about getting it 'when you die'. Informal register; sceptical, deflating connotation, dismissing a promise as naive or manipulative. Regional use: American English origin; now General English.
Origin
The phrase was coined by the Swedish-American labour activist and songwriter Joe Hill in his 1911 satirical song 'The Preacher and the Slave', published in the IWW's Little Red Songbook and parodying the Salvation Army hymn 'In the Sweet By and By'. The offending verse ran: 'Work and pray, live on hay, you'll get pie in the sky when you die' - a jab at preachers who promised heavenly rewards to workers instead of better wages. The coinage is unusually well documented for an idiom: a dated, named author and a printed source. Over the 20th century the phrase detached from its labour context and generalized to mean any implausibly rosy promise.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- get pie in the sky when you die
- pie in the sky by and by
Usage Examples
- The startup's pitch sounded like pie in the sky until the prototype actually worked.
- Voters have heard pie-in-the-sky promises about the bridge for three elections running.
- Free energy for everyone is pie in the sky, but cheaper solar is not.