idealadj.n.

Etymology: < post-classical Latin idealis having the nature of an idea, relating to an idea (5th cent.), conforming to an idea or form (13th cent. in British sources), existing as an idea in the mind (1488 in a British source) < classical Latin idea idea n. + -ālis -al suffix¹. Compare Middle French, French idéal existing only in the imagination (1551; in this sense now largely superseded by idéel : see note), conceived or regarded as perfect or supremely excellent in its kind (1758), Spanish ideal (early 15th cent. as adjective, earliest in idealmente ideally adv.), Italian ideale (a1321). The Latin adjective was also borrowed into other Germanic languages, partly via French; compare e.g. Dutch ideaal (1777 as †ideal), German ideal (17th cent., originally as first element in compounds, e.g. Idealform; in the sense ‘existing only in the imagination’ now superseded by ideell: see note), Swedish ideal (late 18th cent.). In use as noun largely after German Ideal (c1760 in aesthetic context, 1781 or earlier (in Kant) in philosophical context); compare French idéal (1746; probably after German, although the latter is apparently first attested slightly later), Spanish ideal (first half of the 16th cent.), Italian ideale (1670), uses as noun of the respective adjectives. The now usual French adjective in the sense ‘existing only in the imagination’ is idéel , which is first attested in 1671, subsequently in 1677, and then only from 1843 onwards. It may originally have arisen from a typographical error for intended idéal . In later use, it was probably borrowed < German ideell , (c1800 in the same sense), in order to avoid the polysemy of idéal (in which the sense ‘perfect, consummate’ coexisted with the sense ‘of or relating to an idea, existing only in the imagination’). German ideell is probably an alteration of ideal with suffix substitution, after the similar variation seen in real real, actually existing (early 17th cent.; < post-classical Latin realis real adj.²) and reell real, actually existing, (now chiefly) honest, straightforward, solid, decent (c1700; < French réel real adj.²). In sense A. 6a after German ideal (in ideale Zahl ideal number: E. E. Kummer 1846, in Ber. über die zur Bekanntmachung geeigneten Verh. der Königl. Preuss. Akad. der Wissensch. zu Berlin 87). In sense A. 6b after French idéal ( J. V. Poncelet Traité des propriétés projectives des figures (1822) i. ii. §§50 ff.). In sense B. 4 after German Ideal (R. Dedekind in P. G. L. Dirichlet Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie (ed. 2, 1871) Suppl. x. 452, after the adjectival use at sense A. 6a). Quot. 1732 at sense B. 1 apparently results from a misapprehension of the original French text, where idéales is the feminine plural of the adjective, qualifying additions.