dystopian

adjective

dys·to·pi·an (ˌ)dis-ˈtō-pē-ən

variants or less commonly dystopic

(ˌ)dis-ˈtō-pik

-ˈtä-

Synonyms of dystopian next

: of, relating to, or being an imagined world or society in which people lead dehumanized, fearful lives : relating to or characteristic of a dystopia

A twisted romantic haunted by dystopian visions, Gibson borrows the language of science fiction and crafts doomed love stories with high-tech trappings.—

Maitland McDonagh

Dystopian visions are in a sense mythopoeic: depicting a creation myth in a future world of darkness and silence.—

Sarah Lefanu

Biotechnology is a force for good, but without adherence to the ideal of universal human equality, it opens the door to the soft tyranny of Gattaca and, ultimately the dystopian nightmare of Brave New World.—

Wesley J. Smith

Like many advances in science and technology, the dystopian implications of data mining have been described best by science-fiction writers.—

John Markoff

… Orwellian has become a word itself: an adjective denoting a dystopic world where language is cut adrift from meaning.—

Harvey A. Daniels

Letter by letter, we read of a society that seems to move from one dystopic nightmare to another …—

Simon Winchester

Examples of dystopian in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web This paranoia is illustrated in frightening detail in dystopian narratives like Black Mirror through real-world incidents of technological misuse and concerns about losing control over personal data and privacy. —

Mark Travers, Forbes, 13 Sep. 2024 Civil War: Storyline, Plot Written and directed by Alex Garland, Civil War is set in a dystopian alternative reality where the United States is engulfed in a brutal civil war between Loyalists and Western Forces. —

Rudie Obias, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Sep. 2024 Perhaps in 2005, when popular social media sites were at their infancy, using fake beauty projections of young people as the basis of a dystopian tale was a more novel idea. —

Tomris Laffly, Variety, 12 Sep. 2024 Our picks track a broad swath of Civil War depictions in cinema, from Buster Keaton’s seminal silent comedy The General (1926) to Sofia Coppola’s simmering psychological thriller The Beguiled (2017) and Alex Garland’s dystopian epic Civil War (2024). —

Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 8 Sep. 2024 See all Example Sentences for dystopian

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dystopian.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.