dystopian n.

one who advocates or describes a dystopia n. 2

SF Criticism

Dystopia

  • 1868 J. S. Mill in Hansard Commons 12 Mar. 1517/1

    It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or caco-topians. What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they appear to favour is too bad to be practicable.

  • 1963 Extrapolation (vol. iv, no. 2) May 23

    He compares both the utopian dreamers and the dystopians to the Old Testament prophets especially.

  • 1992 New Republic 15 June 38/2

    All the great twentieth-century dystopians have been socialists, and Orwell was no exception. The road that led to Wigan Pier was the same road that led to Mr. Pilkington’s farm and the nightmare world of Oceania in 1984.


Research requirements

antedating 1868

Earliest cite

J. S. Mill in 'Hansard Commons'

Last modified 2020-12-16 15:34:07
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.