castles in Spain

English

Etymology

Calque of French châteaux en Espagne, recorded in the Roman de la Rose in the 13th century and translated into English around 1365.

Noun

castles in Spain (uncountable)

1. A variant of castles in the air.
   • 1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter XXX, in Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, published August 1909 (11th printing), →OCLC:

     Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling were happening to her in cloudland—adventures that always turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life.

   • 1977, “Day After Day (The Show Must Go On)”, in I Robot, performed by The Alan Parsons Project:

     The show must go on / And time slipped away / Before you could build any castles in Spain / The chance had gone by