Utopia Means No Place at All
A utopia is an ideal society. Thomas More coined the name in 1516 from Greek words meaning no place, as a deliberate joke.
A utopia is an imagined perfect society. Thomas More built the word in 1516 from Greek *ou*, not, and *topos*, place — no place. He knew readers would hear *eu-topos*, good place, and the pun is the argument: the perfect society is precisely the one that does not exist. *Dystopia* was formed much later, on the same pattern.
- An imagined perfect society. *A socialist utopia.*
- An impossible ideal. *That is pure utopia.*
- Utopian — idealistic, often impractically so. *A utopian scheme.*
- Dystopia — an imagined terrible society. *A dystopian novel.*
- More's book — *Utopia*, published in 1516. *More's Utopia.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | utopia | A rural utopia. |
| Plural | utopias | Rival utopias. |
| Adjective | utopian | Utopian thinking. |
| Opposite | dystopia | A bleak dystopia. |
| Greek | ou-topos | No place. |
- The commune was meant to be a utopia.The ideal.
- The plan is utopian and unaffordable.Criticism.
- Dystopian fiction boomed in the twentieth century.The opposite.
Words invented by writers
- Utopia — Thomas More, 1516
- Serendipity — Horace Walpole, 1754, from a Persian tale
- Pandemonium — John Milton, 1667, the capital of Hell
- Chortle — Lewis Carroll, 1871
- Cyberspace — William Gibson, 1982
Modern Latin *Utopia*, coined by Thomas More as the name of an imaginary island, from Greek *ou*, not, and *topos*, place. *Dystopia* is recorded from the 1700s and became common in the twentieth century.
Does utopia mean good place?
No. It means no place. More chose it knowing it sounds like eutopia, good place, and the pun carries his argument.
When was dystopia coined?
The word appears in the 1700s, but it became widely used only in the twentieth century, with the rise of dystopian fiction.