utopia

Pronunciation

• IPA: /juːˈtəʊpiə/ (UK); /juˈtoʊpiə/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin Ūtopia, the name of an imaginary island in Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516),^[2][3][4][5] which More coined from Ancient Greek οὐ (ou, “not”) + τόπος (tópos, “place”).^[2][3][6][4] Its literal meaning is therefore “nowhere”.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The imaginary island described by More, enjoying a perfect social, legal and political system (in English from 1551).^[7][6][4]

Semantic evolution

More's book was written in Latin and first translated into English in 1551.^[4][6] The name was extended to any imaginary, remote country by 1610^[7] and to any ideally perfect place or state by 1613.^[7][6] By the early 18th century it also meant an impossibly ideal scheme for social improvement.^[7][2] Although the name means “no place”, it is often taken to mean “good place”, as if from Greek eu- “good”, an idea reinforced by later coinages such as dystopia.^[6]

Timeline

• 1551 – More's imaginary island.^[7][6][4]
• 1597 – first date given by Merriam-Webster.^[3]
• 1610 – any imaginary remote country.^[7][4]
• 1613 – an ideally perfect place or state.^[7][6]
• before 1734 – an impossibly ideal scheme of reform.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An ideally perfect place or state, especially in its laws, government and society.
2. An impractical, idealistic scheme for social or political reform.
3. A work of fiction describing an ideal society.

Word family

• dystopia
• utopian

Related words

• topic

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press