utopianadj.n.
/juːˈtəʊpɪən/, /jᵿˈtəʊpɪən/, U.S. /juˈtoʊpiən/ A. adj.† II. Belonging to no particular place.
I. Senses relating to an imaginary or perfect place.
1. With capital initial. Of or relating to Sir Thomas More's imaginary island of Utopia, or another imaginary place of the same name. Cf. utopia n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabiting a type of place > [adjective] > dwelling in ideal place
utopian1551
1551 R. Robinson in tr. T. More Vtopia Epist. sig. ✠vv This boke of ye vtopian commen wealth.
1556 A. Vele in R. Robinson tr. T. More Utopia (ed. 2) Printer to Rdr. sig. Sviii The Vtopian Alphabete.
1620 J. Taylor Jack a Lent in Wks. (1630) 113/2 As Nymshag an ancient Vtopian Philosopher declares.
1622 J. Taylor Sir Gregory Nonsence in Wks. (1630) Aa j b He..began to declare in the Vtopian speech, what I haue here..Translated.
1681 (title) A Pleasant Battle between two Lap-dogs of the Utopian Court.
1737 (title) Tom Tell-Truth, of the island of Utopia's letter to Mr. Nobody... Newly translated from the Utopian language, by Timothy Plain.
1747 Fool No. 68. 125 Your Utopian King, Prince, Dukes, Earls, and Lairds, made an Eclat.
1792 Eng. Rev. July 57 Sir Thomas More, were he living, would find his Utopian system to be by no means regarded as a mere effusion of the fancy.
1808 A. Cayley tr. T. More Utopia in Mem. Sir T. More II. 7 That I should anticipate him in what belongs to the Utopian Commonwealth.
1895 J. H. Lupton Utopia of Sir Thomas More 117 On this and other repellent features of the Utopian character, as drawn by More.
1938 H. M. Smith Pre-Reformation Eng. ii. vi. 476 More, being a practical man of affairs, did not expect that his Utopian Commonwealth would ever be established.
1991 Albion 23 224 The Utopian constitution..was based on the premise that the legal structure must restrain the natural inclination of men to seek and abuse power.
2.
a. Originally and chiefly depreciative. Of a vision, plan, etc.: expressing or founded on an unrealistic belief in the perfectibility of society; excessively idealistic; impracticable; (of an ideal condition) illusory, unattainable. Now also in neutral or positive sense: idealistic, optimistic.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > faculty of conceiving ideals > [adjective] > to extravagant extent
utopical1574
utopian1588
romantic1659
utopic1850
supermundane1851
1588 E. Aggas tr. De Fresnes in E. Aggas tr. F. de La Noue Politicke & Mil. Disc. Ep. Ded. sig. A6v For the author hereof hath not after the maner of some both auncient and late Philosophers wasted his time in forging an Idea of Utopian perfections [Fr. vne Idee de perfection Vtopienne].
1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy Democritus to Rdr. 58 Vtopian parity is a thing to be wished for rather then effected.
1659 B. Walton Considerator Considered 72 This, I doubt, will prove an Utopian conceit.
1762 Ld. Kames Elements Crit. I. ii. 44 For confuting such Utopian systems without the intricacy of reasoning.
1798 J. Ferriar Illustr. Sterne iii. 59 He indulges himself in an Utopian sketch of a perfect government.
1849 C. Brontë Shirley I. ix. 237 Marriage! I cannot bear the word: it sounds so silly and utopian.
1877 W. H. Burroughs On Taxation 22 They have regarded any attempt to practise absolute equality as Utopian.
c1933 D. Thomas Coll. Lett. (1987) 17 It is not Utopian advice that I am attempting to ladle out to you. It is terribly practical.
1989–90 Mod. Painters Winter 96/2 At its best ballet gives us an utopian vision of how people can live in groups.
2007 Nylon Feb. 92/2 Arsham became interested in architectural schemes and utopian ideals that were never fully realized.
b. Of a person: that imagines or proposes a utopia; that believes in the perfectibility of social and political conditions; visionary, idealistic. Frequently (esp. in early use) depreciative, with connotations of idle speculation and impracticality.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > political philosophy > specific political theories or doctrines > [adjective] > Utopianism
utopian1592
1592 H. Broughton Apol. in Briefe Assertions sig. K4v Vile, base, obscure, tryflyng ragges of Vtopian Scriueners.
a1631 J. Donne Poems (1633) 62 If men..Durst looke in themselves..They would like strangers greet themselves, seeing then Utopian youth, growne old Italian.
a1680 S. Butler Genuine Remains (1759) II. 52 A Republican is a civil Fanatic, an Utopian Senator.
1757 Test 16 Apr. 128 He has at length determined to dismiss his utopian minister for the real and solid advantages of men who can carry theory into practice.
1792 W. Roberts Looker-on No. 26. 203 An Utopian speculatist might amuse himself with planning a department in every district, or parish, which should be called the office of advice.
1848 Christian Reformer Dec. 747 The author is no Utopian dreamer or social leveller, but is evidently desirous, if possible, to bridge over the deep gulf that now separates the rich and poor.
1868 W. Peard Pract. Water-farming xi. 114 We are not so Utopian as to assert that the final triumph of our rivers can be achieved without patience, skill, and money.
1917 Public 23 Mar. 275/2 The men now at the helm in Russia..are neither narrow-minded Chauvinists nor Utopian radicals.
1971 B. Moyers Listening Amer. 49 The young are terribly idealistic, actually utopian, in their notions of what society could be.
2010 L. Powell Framing Innocence i. iii. 26 Oberlin, Ohio—a small town with its own unconventional history of radical politics and utopian dreamers.
c. Of an imagined or hypothetical place, system, or state of existence: having (impossibly) ideal conditions in respect of social structure, laws, politics, etc.; idyllic, perfect. Also: of or relating to such a place.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > faculty of conceiving ideals > ideal place > [adjective]
eutopian1606
utopian1613
Erewhonian1897
ecotopian1975
never-never1986
the mind > mental capacity > expectation > hope > doctrine of human perfectibility > [adjective] > relating to Utopia
utopian1613
1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage 520 Yea, no Vtopian State comparable to theirs.
1647 Mercurius Anti-pragmaticus No. 6. 4 They are like to wander forty yeeres..ere they arrive in their Utopian Paradise.
1651 C. Walker High Court of Justice 14 To these..they entrust the Administration of this Utopian Commonwealth.
a1774 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued (1777) III. ii. 409 The introduction of an Utopian state.
1782 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting (ed. 3) IV. iii. 284 When he was laying out so magnificent, charitable, and philosophic an Utopian villa.
1833 Methodist Mag. Oct. 474 Plato is represented as having banished the poets from his Utopian republic, as pests to society.
1840 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 816/2 How..any other gentleman would accommodate his Utopian population so that they should not crowd and jostle each other, or strive together for the vulgar necessity of aliment, is more than we can divine.
1855 C. Kingsley Westward Ho! xix When we have babbled together of Utopian governments in days which are now dreams to me.
1905 H. G. Wells Mod. Utopia ix. 259 These people constitute an order, the samurai, the ‘voluntary nobility’, which is essential in the scheme of the Utopian State.
1971 Physics Bull. June 322/1 Is this just pie-in-the-sky dreaming about some utopian future where there will be no more pollution, poverty, malnutrition and similar afflictions?
2000 Interzone Oct. 33/1 The Flintstone movies give a glimpse of a utopian world where live humans and animated anthropomorphs could all just dwell in peace in one big happy family.
d. Of a real community, society, etc.: planned according to a vision of social perfection; esp. founded on egalitarian principles. Originally with reference to the British colonies in North America. Later frequently with reference to the communities established in the early 19th cent. by social reformers such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen; cf. utopian socialism n.
ΚΠ
1747 W. Douglass Summary State Brit. Settlements N.-Amer. I. iv. 246 The New Utopian Colony of Georgia.
1766 St. James's Chron. 23 Jan. If the Enemy had been still in Possession of theirs [sc. Colonies], on the back of the Utopian Colonies, [etc.].
1827 Daily National Intelligencer (Washington) 10 July The leases by which Mr. Owen has granted his lands in Indiana for the formation of his Utopian communities.
1895 Monthly Packet Nov. 548 Where the members of a Utopian community have been bound by the tie of religion, there we find some permanence, and a certain amount of success.
1917 Papers & Proc. 12th Ann. Meeting Amer. Sociol. Soc. 74 Utopian communities have ever failed to preserve tranquillity once the restraining bonds of custom and convention are loosened.
1974 H. J. Berman Interaction Law & Relig. 172 The utopian communes of the Shakers, Owenites, Amish, Fourierists, and others.
2002 High Country News 11 Nov. 9/2 Americans have long balkanized into distinct self-styled communities, from immigrant ghettos to utopian farms.
e. Designating a written work (now esp. a fictional narrative) about an ideal society, place, or state of existence. Also: of or relating to such a work. Cf. utopia n. 3.
ΚΠ
1782 J. Nichols Biogr. & Lit. Anecd. W. Bowyer 241 He [sc. James Burgh] printed a kind of Utopian Romance, intituled, ‘An account of the first Settlement, Laws, Form of Government, and Police, of the Cessares’.
1858 Addr. Newly-appointed Professors Columbia Coll. 106 His Catechism of Positive Religion..belongs to the Utopian literature, proclaiming the regeneration and the reconstruction of all human society.
1886 Academy 27 Mar. 216/2 Inquirendo Island is a further contribution to Utopian literature, of which there has been rather a glut of late years.
1903 Homiletic Rev. Dec. 491/1 (advt.) Edward Bellamy, the journalist and celebrated author of the Utopian novel ‘Looking Backward’.
1956 Sewanee Rev. 64 97 Orwell, like Huxley, is greatly influenced by..the whole Utopian tradition against which he reacts.
1971 C. Oliver in W. F. Nolan Edge of Forever 295 I have never been much attracted by scientific essays in fictional form, by Utopian fiction, or by traditional social satire.
2001 Times Lit. Suppl. 21 Sept. 28/3 The utopian genre is eclectic, and parasitic on other literary genres.
3. Of a place: imaginary, mythical, non-existent (without implication of perfection). Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > place > [adjective] > having no known location
utopian1624
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > mental image, idea, or fancy > [adjective] > only in imagination or unreal
imaginary?1510
imaginative1517
rational1530
fantastical1531
fantasied1561
airy1565
fancied1568
legendary1570
dreamed1597
fabled1606
ideal1611
fictive1612
affectual1614
insubstantiala1616
imaginatorya1618
supposititious1620
fictitious1621
utopian1624
utopic1624
notional1629
affective1633
fictiousa1644
notionary1646
figmental1655
suppositious1655
fict1677
visionary1725
metaphysical1728
unrealized1767
fancy1801
nice-spun1801
subjective1815
aerial1829
transcendental1835
cardboardy1863
mythical1870
cardboard1879
fictionary1882
figmentary1887
alternative1939
alternate1944
fantasized1964
ideate1966
fanciful-
fantastic-
1624 J. Smith Gen. Hist. Virginia v. 174 It hath beene to the Spaniards more fearefull then an Vtopian Purgatory.
1678 R. Cudworth True Intellect. Syst. Universe i. ii. 60 They must be imagined to subsist in certain Intermundane Spaces, and Utopian Regions without the World.
1745 J. Swift Ode to Sir W. Temple in Misc. X. 194 Search out this Utopian Ground, Virtue's Terra Incognita.
1855 E. C. Wines Comm. Laws Anc. Hebrews i. iii. 148 Where is this land of Seriad..? Scaliger, after a laborious search, acknowledges his inability to find its locality. It is manifestly a utopian region.
1996 R. H. Vermij in S. Berti et al. Heterodoxy, Spinozism, & Free Thought in Early-18th-cent. Europe ii. vi. 250 The central episode is the hero's sojourn in a utopian country, Butrol, a country ruled by despotic kings..whose claims were upheld by means of fraud and imposture.
4. Of a cleric (esp. a bishop): having no assigned diocese or sphere of work. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > church government > member of the clergy > clerical superior > bishop > kinds of bishop > [adjective] > without fixed diocese
portative1550
titular1591
utopian1613
1613 F. Mason Of Consecration Bishops i. iii. 14 The Pope maketh painted Patriarches, filling their ambitious heads with emptie titles like to great bladders blowne full of wind. Such Vtopian Bishops may iustly be called no Bishops.
1697 T. Long Rev. R. Baxter's Life ii. 141 Some of his Party force the Bishops to lay their hands on Novatian, and make him an Utopian Bishop.
1710 J. Bingham Origines Ecclesiasticæ (ed. 2) II. iv. vi. 161 The Nullatenenses of latter Ages, as Panormitan calls Titular and Utopian Bishops.
a1796 G. Campbell Lect. Eccl. Hist. (1800) I. xi. 352 Those Utopian clergy, whom Panormitan has not improperly, though derisively, styled nullatenentes, holding nothing.
1843 J. P. Lawson Hist. Sc. Episcopal Church App. 522 Utopian Bishops, or Bishops at large, who had no concern with this Church.
B. n.
1. A native or inhabitant of Sir Thomas More's imaginary island of Utopia (see utopia n. 1a) or another imaginary place of the same name; (later also) an inhabitant of an (imagined) perfect or idealized place.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > inhabitant according to environment > [noun] > inhabitant of imaginary or ideal place
utopian1551
Arcadian1590
hyperborean1601
eutopian1629
Ruritanian1894
1551 R. Robinson tr. T. More Vtopia sig. Nii The wyttes therefore of the Vtopians [L. Utopiensium]..be maruelous quycke.
1684 Bp. G. Burnet in tr. T. More Utopia Pref. sig. A7 The precaution used in Marriages among the Utopians.
1709 D. Manley Secret Mem. (ed. 2) II. 144 The Utopians became more considerable to their Neighbours, than they had been in some Ages.
1771 J. Adams Diary 10 Nov. (1961) II. 52 The good Humour..and Wisdom of the Utopians, is charming.
1825 Oriental Herald Nov. 293 The cities of the Utopians were divided into four equal parts, in each of which was a market-place, filled with all the necessaries of life.
1857 W. Smith Thorndale iv. v. 314 I know not precisely how his [sc. Clarence's] Utopians intend to deal with war.
1905 National Rev. July 813 Mr. Wells' Utopians use money, drink wine and beer, [etc.].
1990 L. C. Khanna in L. F. Jones & S. W. Goodwin Feminism, Utopia, & Narr. 130 Le Guin invents a new alphabet for her utopians and gives readers the script.
2000 Utopian Stud. 11 182 In More's evaluation, the Utopians remain healthily commonsensical and unseduced by oversubtle distinctions and vast abstractions.
2. A person who imagines or proposes a utopia; an advocate of social reform; a visionary, an idealist. Frequently (esp. in early use) depreciative, with connotations of idle speculation and impracticality.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > political philosophy > specific political theories or doctrines > [noun] > Utopianism > adherent of
utopian1597
utopist1830
utopianist1836
utopianizera1843
utopiast1845
1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. xxxvi. 74 Such suttle opinions as few but Vtopians are likely to fall into.
1636 H. Blount Voy. Levant 61 Opinions guided by sublimities, and moralities imaginary, this I leave to Vtopians who doating on their phantastique supposals, shew their owne capacitie, or hypocrisie, and no more.
1766 F. Blackburne Confessional viii. 305 The adversaries of the doctrine heretofore were only harmless theoretical Utopians. They are now, fanatics, enthusiasts, and bigots.
1774 T. Pownall Admin. Brit. Colonies ii. 83 We wretched empirics who have entertained the idea [sc. a British Union], and have written about it, have been treated as Utopians.
1840 C. G. F. Gore Dowager I. vii. 162 My girls are not to be Utopians. They must abide in the world as it is, and fulfil the duties incumbent on their sex.
1878 J. R. Seeley Life & Times Stein II. 363 Stein..was never the utopian here described.
1887 J. C. Morison Service of Man p. xxiv He looks with coldness on Utopians who are equally ignorant of capital, labour, or hard work.
1905 National Rev. July 807 It has been the Utopian who..has ventured, in the teeth of ridicule, to point the way towards a new earth that shall have in it a little more of the old heaven.
1981 London Rev. Bks. 16 July 9 Utopians from More onwards placed their emphasis on restricting consumption rather than on maximising production.
2005 D. Cruickshank Around World in 80 Treasures 48 Like many late 18th-century utopians and idealists, Jefferson loved the common man—but at a distance.
Derivatives
uˈtopian-like adv. and adj. (a) adv. in a utopian manner (now rare); (b) adj. characteristic of a utopian; resembling something utopian.
ΚΠ
1614 W. Raleigh Hist. World i. iii. viii. §1. 88 They liued Vtopian-like, saue that they vsed no other occupation than Warre.
1630 W. Vaughan Newlanders Cure ii. ii. 109 I blame not lawfull Permutation, (But with a sober limitation), Vtopian-like, to barre Commerce.
1721 A. Welwood Meditations 195 The Kingdom above these visible Heavens appears strange Utopian-like inventions.
1904 N. I. Stone tr. K. Marx Contrib. Critique Polit. Econ. i. i. 61 He..gets into a rage about the capitalist system of labor in one form while utopian-like he praises it in another.
2001 Washington Times (Nexis) 4 Feb. b8 These utopian-like ideas were not popular in American business circles.
uˈtopianly adv.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > faculty of conceiving ideals > [adverb]
idealistically1854
ideationally1855
utopianly1856
1856 H. G. Migault Eight Hist. Diss. Suicide 146 We must distinguish carefully between..what existed as actual law and what was only Utopianly proposed.
1960 Spectator 20 May 733/1 If the French Government or, perhaps less utopianly, one of those admirable ‘pirate’ firms in America, can be persuaded to issue the full score.
2008 G. A. Cohen Rescuing Justice & Equality 1 If the right principles..are practiced in everyday life, as the socialist ideal utopianly envisages that they will be, then the state can wither away.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2013; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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adj.n.1551