Meaning of blue-sky in English

blue-sky

adjective [ before noun ]

/ˌbluːˈskaɪ/ us

/ˌbluːˈskaɪ/

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using the imagination to think of ideas that do not yet have practical uses or make money:

blue-sky research

blue-sky thinking

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Inspiration and inspiring

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Imagining and conceiving

(Definition of blue-sky from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

blue-sky | Business English

blue-sky

adjective

blue-sky thinking

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ways of thinking about a subject or dealing with a problem that are new and original but may not always be practical:

What we need at the moment is specialist knowledge and implementation rather than blue-sky thinking.

(Definition of blue-sky from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of blue-sky

blue-sky

Is it not true that people in this country need to continue to promote blue-sky research rather than market research?

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

In order to conduct blue-sky research in universities, we needed massive investment.

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Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

There are problems in obtaining backing for any blue-sky research.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

I hope that we will concentrate our funding not only on scientific applications but also on blue-sky research.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

I am not even sure that there has been any blue-sky thinking—we are just feeling our way and seeing what fits and docs not.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

We can never predict where blue-sky research will lead, but it must take place because amazing things can come out of it.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

That is where we have ended up, with all research harnessed to narrow instead of blue-sky projects.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

Some can and must conduct blue-sky research.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

One of my constituents has conducted lengthy blue-sky research and translated his findings into a piece of educational technology that may well revolutionise language teaching in this country.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

We are right to talk about the fears for blue-sky research in a system that sometimes seems to place too much emphasis on process and not enough on discovery.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

The yoke is referred to the cattle-breeding and the agriculture, the red to the mountains rich in porphyry and the azure to the blue-sky.

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Wikipedia

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The snow is more generalized than the blue-sky sprites or worms seen in the blue field entoptic phenomenon.

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Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

Because of the inherently uncertain return on investment, blue-sky projects are politically and commercially unpopular and tend to lose funding to more reliably profitable or practical research.

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Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

I have wondered once or twice what people will make of this debate in five years' time, when the blue-skies idea has moved on.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

We need blue-skies research, and it must be publicly funded.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of blue-sky?