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

“The Punch Bowl,” made in late 1944, when Germany was on its knees, portrayed a “good old German never-never land of unspoiled cobblestone streets.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 13, 2026

"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

“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