Utopia
[yoo-toh-pee-uh]
- an imaginary island described in Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) as enjoying perfection in law, politics, etc.
- (usually lowercase) an ideal place or state.
- (usually lowercase) any visionary system of political or social perfection.
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Origin of Utopia
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for utopia
Contemporary Examples
Founded as a utopia where possessions, childcare, and love were communal, traditional family structures were banned.
He was so disappointed with communism that he decided that the Khomeini utopia was the right one!
The Politics of Literature: An interview with Nobel laureate Mario Vargas LlosaMichael Moynihan
October 10, 2013
Utopia for Beginners Joshua Foer, The New Yorker An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented.
Until that utopia arrives, it might be heartening to realize that most students have easy, albeit illegal, access to these drugs.
Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia from 1970 was the founding document, the God and Man at Yale of the movement.
Historical Examples
They are said, though it is not easy to believe, to have been elaborated by way of Utopia.
Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3)John Morley
The 'New Atlantis' is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the 'Utopia.'
The RepublicPlato
And 'the secret has perished' with him; to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown.
The RepublicPlato
I have at last seen the Utopia at Paris printed, but with many misprints.
Erasmus and the Age of ReformationJohan Huizinga
If we cannot hope to turn it into Utopia, let us at least make it as much like Utopia as we can.
The Legacy of GreeceVarious
Utopia
- (sometimes not capital) any real or imaginary society, place, state, etc, considered to be perfect or ideal
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Word Origin
C16: from New Latin Utopia (coined by Sir Thomas More in 1516 as the title of his book that described an imaginary island representing the perfect society), literally: no place, from Greek ou not + topos a place
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for utopia
n.
1550s, from Modern Latin Utopia, literally "nowhere," coined by Thomas More (and used as title of his book, 1516, about an imaginary island enjoying perfect legal, social, and political systems), from Greek ou "not" + topos "place" (see topos). Extended to "any perfect place," 1610s.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Utopia
(1516) A book by Sir Thomas More that describes an imaginary ideal society free of poverty and suffering. The expression utopia is coined from Greek words and means “no place.”
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Note
By extension, a “utopia” is any ideal state.
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.