Meaning & use
dystopia
An imagined society or place marked by great suffering, injustice, or oppressive control, often in fiction.
See it in a sentence
The novel imagines a dystopia where a single company controls every citizen's choices.
Many popular films depict a dystopia ruined by war, surveillance, or environmental collapse.
A note on using this word
Dystopia is the opposite of utopia, which describes an imagined ideal and perfectly harmonious society.
Words with a similar meaning
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