utopian.
/juːˈtəʊpɪə/, /jᵿˈtəʊpɪə/, U.S. /juˈtoʊpiə/ 1. † b. With capital initial. Any imaginary or mythical place (without implication of perfection), imagined as existing in some remote location on earth. Obsolete.
a. With capital initial. An imaginary island in Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516), presented by the narrator as having a perfect social, legal, and political system. Critics have questioned the extent to which More intended Utopia to be understood as an ideal society, given the many seemingly satirical aspects of the book and the apparent contradictions between Utopian practices and More's own life.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > a or the state > [noun] > ideal
utopia1533
ideal state1771
the mind > mental capacity > expectation > hope > doctrine of human perfectibility > [noun] > belief in a perfect society > example of
Zion1530
utopia1533
Pantisocracy1794
1533 W. Tyndale Souper of Lorde f. 29v Nor [would] the pore soule & proctour ther be with his blody bisshop crysten catte so farre coniured into his [sc. More's] owne Utopia.
1551 R. Robinson tr. T. More (title) A fruteful, and pleasaunt worke of the beste state of a publyque weale, and of the newe yle called Vtopia.
1570 J. Foxe Actes & Monumentes (rev. ed.) II. 1156/2 I do not..thinke, that..there is any such fourth place of Purgatory at all (vnles it be in M. Mores Vtopia).
1607 T. Tomkis Lingua ii. vi I remember in the Country of Utopia, they use no other kind of artillery.
1685 J. Crowne Sir Courtly Nice i. 6 He will find it is a dream fit for nothing but Utopia.
1692 R. Bentley Boyle Lect. ii. 37 Once upon a time,..in the land of Vtopia, there was a Dialogue between an Oak and a Cedar.
1725 E. Haywood (title) Memoirs of a certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia.
1751 J. Brown Ess. Characteristics 65 But of this infallible race I know none, except the inhabitants of Utopia.
1837 T. B. Macaulay in Edinb. Rev. July 81 An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.
1895 J. H. Lupton Utopia of Sir Thomas More 115 Plate, Reduced facsimile of the woodcut of the Island of Utopia.
1911 Faith Sept. 326 The Utopia described by Thomas More and the Arcadia that has formed the song of many of the poets are but fancies of the human mind.
2000 Harper's Mag. Dec. 9/3 More introduced the possibility of a peaceable kingdom just over the horizon of historical time, his island of Utopia located somewhere off the coast of the newly discovered America.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > place > [noun] > imaginary or remote
utopia1549
faerie1590
1549 M. Coverdale et al. tr. Erasmus Paraphr. Newe Test. II. Rev. xii. f. xviv What lyes soeuer they [sc. Jews] feyne of their lande and regyment in Vtopia (whiche they name Caspia).
1592 H. Broughton Apol. in Briefe Assertions sig. Kv For he nameth not Robbin-hood, but Nabonassar, yet one of Vtopia, or no place, matching in ancienty Ezekias king of Iudah.
1610 T. Thorpe in J. Healey tr. St. Augustine Citie of God Ep. Ded. sig. A3 Then [when Healey translated Hall's Mundus Alter et Idem, he treated] of a deuised Country scarse on earth, now of a desired Citie sure in heauen; then of Vtopia, now of Eutopia.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica iii. xii. 132 Some say it liveth in Æthiopia, others in Arabia, some..in Utopia, for such must that be which is described by Lactantius. View more context for this quotation
1684 J. P. tr. H. Ludolf New Hist. Ethiopia (ed. 2) 46 Ignorant where this River rises,..whether in Asia, in Africa, or in Utopia.
a1692 R. Kirk Secret Commonw. in M. Hunter Occult Lab. (2001) iii. 100 The Reporters [of the discovery of America were] hooted at as Inventers of ridiculous Utopia's.
1709 D. Manley Secret Mem. (ed. 2) II. 115 He was born in Utopia, an Island..of the Adriatick.
1755 W. Warburton Divine Legation Moses (ed. 4) I. ii. iv. 182 A fabulous relation of a voyage to the imaginary island of Panchæa, a kind of ancient Utopia.
2.
a. An imagined or hypothetical place, system, or state of existence in which everything is perfect, esp. in respect of social structure, laws, and politics.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > faculty of conceiving ideals > ideal place > [noun]
heaveneOE
land of behesta1200
Cockaigne?c1335
Fortunate Islands?a1475
eutopia1553
utopia1601
horny gate (also port)1605
nonsucha1618
Americaa1631
El Dorado1788
other world1804
Cockneyland1817
cloud-cuckoo-land1824
Fiddler's Green1825
dreamland1832
Neverland1892
never-never land1900
Big Rock Candy Mountain1917
brave new world1933
Xanadu1948
Disneyland1956
ecotopia1975
1601 Bp. W. Barlow Def. Protestants Relig. 108 I am assured that we all professe there is a Catholike church of Christ, not a Platonicall vtopia, no where extant, but a company of Gods chosen euery where scattered.
1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage 708 The reports of this his voyage savour more of an Vtopia, and Plato's Commonwealth, then of true Historie.
1691 J. Norris Pract. Disc. Divine Subj. 177 To contemplate all this not..as an uncertain Reversion, or imaginary Utopia, but as a state that will shortly and certainly be.
1776 Scots Mag. Jan. 5/2 Honest and well-meaning Republicans..confine themselves to mere theory, and form Utopias, vain chimerical governments, in their own minds.
1827 J. Bentham Rationale Judicial Evid. I. 10 The law is perfect... The law is an Utopia; a country that receives no visits, but from those who find..the most favourable report of it.
1871 J. Morley Condorcet in Crit. Misc. 78 To find adequate gratification in the artificial construction of hypothetical utopias.
1883 Manch. Examiner 22 Nov. 5/2 Ingenious speculators who hope to reach Utopia by the nationalisation of the land.
1901 Critic (N.Y.) Sept. 272/1 The aspirant is looking for Utopia instead of accepting a world.
1940 C. Isherwood Diary 10 July (2011) I. 102 When this war period is over, people will have lost all faith in an earthly utopia.
2003 New Republic 9 June 19/1 The New Left of the 1960s..projected the same hopes for a communist utopia onto Castro's Cuba.
b. A real place which is perceived or imagined as perfect.
ΚΠ
1828 E. Holmes Ramble among Musicians Germany 1 For the English musician it [sc. Antwerp] is..a sort of Utopia.
1861 T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. II. vi. 102 Oxford was a sort of Utopia to the Captain... [He] continued..to behold towers, and quadrangles, and chapels,..through rose-coloured spectacles.
1950 G. B. Shaw Farfetched Fables 79 In the imagination of our amateur politician England is a Utopia in which everything and everybody is ‘free’ and all other countries ‘police States’.
1963 A. Baraka Blues People ii. 14 The United States, the Utopia of the small businessman.
1988 P. Iyer Video Night in Kathmandu 34 Fifteen years ago, the quiet fishing village had been the cheap utopia of bohemians in quest of rural hangouts and vegetable highs.
2010 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 3 Sept. a18/1 It has always been a myth that New York City, in all its dizzying globalness, is a Utopia of humanistic harmony.
3. A written work (now esp. a fictional narrative) about an ideal society, place, or state of existence. In quot. 1633 with direct reference to More's Utopia (see sense 1a).
ΚΠ
1633 T. Nash Quaternio Epil. 278 Who cannot write an Encomium of the foure Cardinall vertues, when as every Booke will yeeld vnto him a helping hand? But with that honorable Knight [sc. Thomas More] to write an Vtopia, or with Erasmus to write a Panegyre of follie, [etc.].
1676 P. Fell Lex Talionis 40 Tis no very good account of time to write an Vtopia, a Politick Romance.
1727 J. Swift Let. to Pope 12 Oct. in Literary Corr. (1741) 58 If I were to write an Utopia for Heaven, that would be one of my Schemes.
1824 T. Medwin Jrnl. Conversat. Byron 1821 & 1822 236 [Quoting Byron] If he [sc. Shelley] were not so mystical, and would not write Utopias and set himself up as a Reformer, [etc.].
1876 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 9 Dec. 754/2 As long as evil lasts, Utopias will be written.
1913 E. C. Baldwin Our Mod. Debt to Israel ii. 69 Most authors of Utopias, such as More, Bacon, and Campanella, represent their ideal commonwealths as already existing.
1985 G. Paley Later Same Day 51 He was..writing a novel, a utopia.
2012 M. R. Page Literary Imagination from E. Darwin to H. G. Wells v. 184 At the end it's not clear whether the novel is a utopia or a dystopia.
4. A plan for or vision of an ideal society, place, or state of existence, esp. one that is impossible to realize; a fantasy, a dream.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > expectation > hope > doctrine of human perfectibility > [noun] > belief in a perfect society > idea or scheme of
utopianism1649
utopia1738
1738 W. Warburton Divine Legation Moses I. 272 It [sc. a theory] is real; no romantic impracticable Utopia.
1744 R. North & M. North Life Sir D. North & Rev. J. North 39 Young Men, for want of Experience,..create Utopia's in their own imagination, and calculate according to their present Fancy.
1843 F. Marryat Narr. Trav. M. Violet III. xii. 245 These are not the wild utopias of a heated imagination.
1869 W. E. H. Lecky Hist. European Morals I. 180 Averse to all enthusiasm, mysticism, utopias, and superstition.
1939 Sci. Fiction Mar. 33 According to this same popular belief,..immortality is but a dreamer's Utopia.
1970 Bull. Atomic Scientists Feb. 3/1 Expectation of sufficiency, if not plenty, for all..is no more an idle utopia, but a rational hope.
1997 C. Boltanski in A. W. Balkema & H. Slager Photographic Paradigm 16 If man does not have a Utopia, he is dead as well. Is life without real hope worth living?
Compounds
utopia maker n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > faculty of conceiving ideals > ideal place > [noun] > creator of
utopia-monger1814
utopia maker1830
1830 Boston Courier 5 Aug. 4/1 There is..a vast country to be restored to civilization. What a God-send for our Utopia-makers!
2004 P. Edwards Statesman's Sci. ii. 65 Those [books] by purely theoretical republicans and utopia makers.
utopia-monger n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > faculty of conceiving ideals > ideal place > [noun] > creator of
utopia-monger1814
utopia maker1830
1814 W. Hazlitt in Morning Chron. 3 Jan. 3/4 There is nothing so provoking as these matter-of-fact Utopia-mongers.
1999 Sunday Times (Nexis) 28 Feb. (Features section) True visionaries—good old-fashioned Utopia-mongers—have become an endangered species.
Derivatives
uˈtopiaize v. [compare earlier utopianize v.] rare †(a) transitive to make (a person) have utopian thoughts (obsolete); (b) intransitive = utopianize v. 1.
ΚΠ
1850 Nonconformist 29 Aug. 696/2 They [sc. detractors of the cause of peace] tell us ‘we are drugged with Utopia-isms; that we are Utopia-ized.’
1853 C. G. F. Gore Dean's Daughter III. 57 A Virginia Hargreave, born to Utopia-ise over a Bostonian tea-table, concerning triumphs to be achieved.
1926 Dearborn (Mich.) Independent 10 July 1/3 Ivan Swift does so many things, it is impossible to show him in action all at once. He paints, lectures, writes poetry, utopiaizes, plays music, [etc.].
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2013; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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