utopia means A world in which everything and everyone works in perfect harmony. It carries an Arena rating of 1838, earned across 60 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, utopia ranks #7 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #133 of 42,762 for Qualifying, #383 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #655 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
utopia is pronounced /juːˈtəʊ.pi.ə/.
Why “utopia” is a great word
An imagined place, state, or society of ideal perfection, especially in laws, government, and social conditions. Coined in 1516 by Sir Thomas More as the title of his book, from the Greek elements ou ("not") and topos ("place"), meaning "no place," with a pun on eu ("good"). Unlike "dystopia" (which envisions a systematic hell) or "paradise" (which implies a divine or natural given), a utopia is a meticulously drafted blueprint, a construct of human reason aiming for a flawless society. It is the rational geometry of an architect’s pristine drawing, the silent harmony of a clockwork city, and the crisp, unreadable pages of a constitution without contradiction—a perfection so pure it can only exist where we are not.
Etymology
From New Latin Ūtopia, 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”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”) + -ία (-ía). Compare English topos and -ia.
noun
- A world in which everything and everyone works in perfect harmony.e.g.“Errors in time must be kept in mind when analyzing myths and utopiae. Utopiae are merely projections, on a less personal and wider scale, of Cinderella’s longing for a happy future.” — 1945, Chimera: A Literary Quarterly, page 22:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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