utopia
yoo-TOH-pee-uh · noun
Ancient GreekNew LatinEnglish
Origin
Coined by Sir Thomas More in his 1516 book Utopia, from Ancient Greek οὐ (ou, "not") plus τόπος (tópos, "place, region") plus the suffix -ία (-ía). The word was built as the name of More's fictional island with a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system.
Journey
It began as the invented name of a single imaginary island in More's book, then widened into English as a common noun for any imagined ideal society.
Related words
It shares its second root with English topos, and its ending relates to the English suffix -ia.
More words
From New Latin