dystopia
/dɪsˈtoʊ.pi.ə/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.72 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A miserable, dysfunctional state or society that has a very poor standard of living or severe censorship, oppression, etc.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "As novelist, he knows, too, that when he sees the future, it will not work—he will automatically be creating a “dystopia” (no one creates utopias any more: even the utopias of the past look like dystopias to us)."
- "2. FEAR OF TECHNOLOGY/THE BOMB/THE FUTURE—Progress run amok, either in the form of cybernetic creatures that turn against their masters, or future dystopiae in which society is controlled by technology."
- "Erich Fromm, who has commented on 1984 and other dystopiae in postmodern literature discovers a mechanized dystopia in the text of existence itself in the ’50s and ’60s—a “technological nightmare” that had turned people into zombies and made the darkest alternative to “boring aliveness” seem attractive."
- "[Aimee Semple] McPherson’s sexier half becomes the object of Jim [Morrison]’s obsession, and as the two struggle to find each other in this disordered land, their wild, careening chase through a dozen dystopiae recalls imagined worlds as diverse as Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange and Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil."
- "Recollections tattooed with stiletto reasons and a sorrowful slant of light admitting of dystopiae already petrified in progress."
- "Its function is to legitimate that particular form of moral tribalism based on the “pedagogy of hatred” that [Evgeny] Zamiatin and [George] Orwell described so brilliantly in their dystopiae."
Etymology
From dys- + -topia, as if from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-, “bad”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”) + -ία (-ía), based on utopia being reinterpreted as eu-topia.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: δυσ-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dɪsˈtoʊ.pi.ə/
- British English: /dɪsˈtəʊ.pi.ə/