grand schemes

Elaborate master plans

Grand schemes are ambitious, large-scale plans or designs, often with an air of overreaching or impracticality.

The phrase typically carries a slightly skeptical or ironic tone, suggesting plans that may be too elaborate or unlikely to succeed.

His grand schemes for renovating the entire neighborhood never got past the planning stage.

When someone dismisses another's grand schemes, they're usually implying the ideas are unrealistic or overly complicated.

Related

overviews · blueprint · megalomaniac · vision · strategy · aspiration · dream · pie in the sky · machinations · planning · best laid plans · long game · foresight · conceptualization · idealism · hubris · imagination · ambition

Opposites
scale and ambition

grand schemesmodest proposals

Unassuming ideas put forward

small potatoes · baby steps · tinkering · local initiatives

planning approach

grand schemesimprovisation

Spontaneous, unplanned creation

spontaneity · winging it · playing it by ear · going with the flow · muddling through

abstraction vs. practicality

grand schemesconcrete steps

Stairs made from hardite mix

Family

grand, schemes, grandly, grandeur, grandness, grander, grandest, grandiose, grandiosity

Familiarity
Top 200,000
Profile
Used worldwide · Timeless · Abstract · Everyday, not technical · Rated G