rainbows and unicorns

An illustration of a unicorn with a rainbow-coloured horn

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹeɪnbəʊz (ə)nd ˈjuːnɪkɔːnz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹeɪnboʊz (ə)nd ˈjunɪkɔɹnz/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: rain‧bows and uni‧corns

rainbows and unicorns pl (plural only)

1. (idiomatic) A wonderful (but often unrealistic) scenario.
   • 2008, Cali Ressler; Jody Thompson, “Introduction: We’ve Had Enough … Have You?”, in Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke—The Simple Change that can Make Your Job Terrific, New York, N.Y.: Portfolio, →ISBN:

     In a Results-Only Work Environment, people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. […] You get paid for a chunk of work, not for a chunk of time. We realize that this sounds too good to be true. This kind of freedom and control and trust sounds like the stuff of rainbows and unicorns. But this idea didn't come out of the blue.

   • 2015, Brian Hawkins; Lily Chiu-Watson, “Appendix A: Interviews with Target Professionals”, in Adobe Target: A Guide for Marketing, Business, and IT Professionals (Classroom in a Book: The Official Training Workbook from Adobe), San Jose, Calif.: AdobePress, →ISBN, page 188:

     Don't get me wrong; it is not all rainbows and unicorns. […] Despite my extensive experience with offline experimental design (from clinical trials to testing the effectiveness of direct mail marketing), I found the online testing space extremely challenging.

   • 2017, Daniel S. Traber, “Introduction: Kill Yr. Culture”, in Culturcide and Non-identity across American Culture, Lanham, Md.; London: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page xxvi:

     Keep in mind that none of this is guaranteed to end with rainbows and unicorns. Like any idea, notions such as "culturcide" and "the culture of one" can be used by people to achieve what will strike a particular society or group or individual as negative effects; nonetheless, I hope to keep things mostly upbeat.

   • 2017 March 1, Anthony Zurcher, “Trump addresses Congress: A kinder, gentler president”, in BBC News‎, archived from the original on 5 June 2017:

     Just a few days earlier, the president [Donald Trump] had remarked that "nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated". Now he's promising rainbows and unicorns.

• sunshine and rainbows

• doom and gloom

• utopia