Definitions

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

  • noun An imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.
  • noun A work describing such a place or state.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Malposition; dislocation.

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

  • noun A vision of a future that is a corrupted (usually beyond recognition) utopian society.
  • noun A miserable, dysfunctional state or society that has a very poor standard of living.
  • noun medicine Anatomical tissue that is not found in its usual place.

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

  • noun state in which the conditions of life are extremely bad as from deprivation or oppression or terror
  • noun a work of fiction describing an imaginary place where life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror

Etymologies

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

[dys– + (u)topia.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus, "bad") + τόπος (topos, "place, region") on model of dys- +‎ utopia (retaining stem, removing u- prefix).

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Examples

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  • ...and America, it seemed, had become a strange dystopia, decadent and almost...

    May 11, 2008

  • Our future :(

    May 17, 2009

  • Nineteen Eighty Four comes to mind.

    July 18, 2009