dystopia
Americannoun
-
dystopias
plural
noun
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Derived Forms
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Nouns
Etymology
Origin of dystopia
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How does dystopia compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A dystopia is a fictional world where people live under a highly controlled, totalitarian system. In his novel "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley created a dystopia where individual identity is suppressed and families no longer exist. Yep, it’s pretty scary. The word dystopia comes from adding the Latin prefix dys, which means “bad,” to the word utopia. So a dystopia is a utopia gone wrong. While the intention might have been to create a perfect society, all the regulations make life there really bad. Often a dystopia in a book is a society of the future, serving as a warning about what might happen if we let technology, industry, and government creep further and further into our lives.
Vocabulary lists containing dystopia
Literary Genres - Introductory
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Achievement First 7th Grade IA 1 Words
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Reading: Literature - Fiction - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There are a lot fewer neon-drenched skyscrapers and risqué robots than we were promised, but a quarter of the way through the 21st century, we are indeed essentially living inside a cyberpunk dystopia.
From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2026
You might have read about the dystopia of super-polluted cities like Delhi, where the city always seems to be shrouded in dust, and you don’t see the sun for days.
From Slate ● Feb. 12, 2026
Is this demographic seeing the Mad Max-style dystopia presented on their social media feeds and responding with this negative outlook?
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2026
We’re told that in this dystopia, whose currency features an image of Mr. Schwarzenegger, having only 65,000 “new dollars” puts you in the top 1%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2025
It would become a corporate-run dystopia, an overpriced theme park for wealthy elitists.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
There’s always a cognitive dissonance through our dystopias; how else would we survive them?
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2024
By many metrics, the dystopias we’ve been envisioning for decades no longer feel quite so escapist, nor fictional.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 24, 2024
“I’m a bit of a sucker for science fiction, dystopias or thrillers,” he said.
From New York Times ● Dec. 6, 2023
It's not even that they're better off in dystopias than utopias — they literally don't exist in utopias!
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2023
Afrofuturist writers explore a language of dreams and dystopias that expresses our greatest hopes while boldly confronting our darkest fears.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
