dystopia

/dəˈstoʊpiə/

/dɪsˈtʌʊpiə/

Other forms: dystopias

A dystopia is a fictional world where people live under a highly controlled, totalitarian system. In his novel "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley created a dystopia where individual identity is suppressed and families no longer exist. Yep, it’s pretty scary.

The word dystopia comes from adding the Latin prefix dys, which means “bad,” to the word utopia. So a dystopia is a utopia gone wrong. While the intention might have been to create a perfect society, all the regulations make life there really bad. Often a dystopia in a book is a society of the future, serving as a warning about what might happen if we let technology, industry, and government creep further and further into our lives.

Definitions of dystopia

1. noun

   state in which the conditions of life are extremely bad as from deprivation or oppression or terror
   antonyms:

   utopia

   ideally perfect state; especially in its social and political and moral aspects

   type of:

   state

   the way something is with respect to its main attributes
2. noun

   a work of fiction describing an imaginary place where life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror
   type of:

   fiction

   a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact