Definition of "might-have-been" []

• An event that could have but never did occur: "This is one of the great might-have-beens of modern history” ( Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.) (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Maybe the glimpse (s) of suburban Manchester he got in the early 1950s were quite enough to feed his fantasies of that “provincial” might-have-been life."
• "Given the ethical dilemmas, the future scenarios of many of the movies discussed here have been consigned to the realm of might-have-been sci-fi."
• "Bear also does a great job of rewriting history here, with a dark version of 1938 that fits perfectly into might-have-been territory … Bear provides plenty of political intrigue, some tension and enough mythic conversation to make readers long for a mystical library collection of their own."