never-never land

See synonyms for never-never land on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. an unreal, imaginary, or ideal state, condition, place, etc.

  2. any remote, isolated, barren, or sparsely settled region.

Origin of never-never land

1
1875–85 for def. 2; reduplication of never

Words Nearby never-never land

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use never-never land in a sentence

  • It is not a story of a never-never land where fantastic happenings take place daily.

    The Year When Stardust Fell | Raymond F. Jones
  • This was an other-world desert, one spawned in the fires of hell—a never-never land of scalding heat and unbelievable cold.

    First on the Moon | Jeff Sutton
  • They are the "Never-Never-Land" in which we shall ever be growing, but never grow up.

    Your National Parks | Enos A. Mills
  • Go, go away, back to the never-never land, stay there and be safe.

    The Brain | Alexander Blade
  • But after all those scuffles on the Strand do seem part of the strange customs of a fusty-dusty never-never land.

    Nonsenseorship | G. G. Putnam and Others

Cultural definitions for Never-Never Land

Never-Never Land

Originally called Neverland, the home of the title character in the story Peter Pan; a place where children never grow up.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Other Idioms and Phrases with never-never land

never-never land

A fantasy land, an imaginary place, as in I don't know what's gotten into Marge—she's way off in never-never land. This expression gained currency when James Barrie used it in Peter Pan (1904) for the place where Peter and the Lost Boys live. However, in the second half of the 1800s Australians already were using it for vast unsettled areas of their continent (the outback), and there the term became popular through Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's We of the Never Never (1908). In Australia it still refers to northwest Queensland or northern Australia in general. Elsewhere it simply signifies a fantasy or daydream.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.