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• never-never land
  never-never land

  noun

  an unreal, imaginary, or ideal state, condition, place, etc.
• 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.

never-never land

American  

noun

1. an unreal, imaginary, or ideal state, condition, place, etc.

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

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Never-Never Land Cultural  

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

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never-never land Idioms  

1. 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.

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Etymology

Origin of never-never land

1875–85 never-never land for def. 2; reduplication of never

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

never-never land Never-Never Land

"It laid bare how incompatible it was to have intelligence services operating in a secret constitutional never-never land and allowed them to become publicly accountable."

From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2023

“But until the bulldozers arrive and the leases are terminated and farmers start to go away, it’s not done. It will be in that never-never land of planning.”

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 28, 2017

“And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2016

“We’re in this never-never land on Capitol Hill,” Blumenauer said.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 14, 2014

Immediately, the breeze took them straight out, as though Peter Pan had donned them to fly across our yard toward never-never land across the Bay.

From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson

If 1960s Imagineers could overhaul their 1950s ideas to create New Tomorrowland, why are we here in the 21st century stuck in Never-Never Land?

From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2017

In 1950, when Bhumibol returned from Europe for his official coronation, the April 3 edition sported a caricature of the young king in full royal pomp with the headline: In a Never-Never Land, Never Mind.

From Time ● Oct. 13, 2016

It’s either leaving the nursery, or leaving Never-Never Land.

From New York Times ● Jun. 26, 2012

Consider Never-Never Land transported to 1929 New York City and Peter Pan sporting a chalk-stripe double-breasted.

From Time Magazine Archive

On television and in the movies now, and even in the pages of novels, people tend to dwell in a classless, homogenized American Never-Never Land.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times