Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.
  • noun A work of fiction describing a utopia.
  • noun An impractical, idealistic scheme for social and political reform.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An imaginary island, described by Sir Thomas More in a work entitled “Utopia,” published in 1516, as enjoying the utmost perfection in law, politics, etc. Hence [lowercase] A place or state of ideal perfection.
  • noun Any imaginary region.
  • noun In entomology, a genus of coleopterous insects.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An imaginary island, represented by Sir Thomas More, in a work called Utopia, as enjoying the greatest perfection in politics, laws, and the like. See Utopia, in the Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction.
  • noun Hence, any place or state of ideal perfection.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A world in which everything and everyone works in perfect harmony.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun ideally perfect state; especially in its social and political and moral aspects
  • noun an imaginary place considered to be perfect or ideal
  • noun a work of fiction describing a utopia
  • noun a book written by Sir Thomas More (1516) describing the perfect society on an imaginary island

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin Ūtopia, imaginary island in Utopia by Sir Thomas More : Greek ou, not, no; see aiw- in Indo-European roots + Greek topos, place.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From New Latin Utopia, the name of a fictional island, possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More. Coined from Ancient Greek οὐ (ou, "not, no") + τόπος (topos, "place, region").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Isn't it interesting that currently almost twice as many people are listing dystopia compared with utopia?

    A sign of the times, perhaps?

    April 9, 2007

  • Hmm...interesting observation, SoG. Maybe we should run a comparison of other Wordie antonyms!

    April 9, 2007

  • I listed them both... do I win?

    April 9, 2007

  • Always, u. Always.

    April 9, 2007

  • Well, utopia is literally "nowhere". I think it's interesting that social perfection is forever linguistically impossible (as it likely is in reality, so I think I favor this word).

    April 9, 2007

  • The name of a region in central Australia. Which, as it happens, is very much nowhere.

    November 26, 2007

  • here now and no where

    July 16, 2012