dystopian
adjective
dys·to·pi·an
(ˌ)dis-ˈtō-pē-ən 
variants
or less commonly dystopic
: 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
Maitland McDonaghDystopian visions are in a sense mythopoeic: depicting a creation myth in a future world of darkness and silence.—Sarah Lefanu
Sarah LefanuBiotechnology 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
Wesley J. SmithLike many advances in science and technology, the dystopian implications of data mining have been described best by science-fiction writers.—John Markoff
John Markoff… Orwellian has become a word itself: an adjective denoting a dystopic world where language is cut adrift from meaning.—Harvey A. Daniels
Harvey A. DanielsLetter by letter, we read of a society that seems to move from one dystopic nightmare to another …—Simon Winchester
Simon WinchesterExamples of dystopian in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The novel is commonly read as dystopian, but Srinivasan seems to have drawn from it a set of concrete policy recommendations.
—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024
Lawson plays Sheila, the wife of Glen Powell’s Ben, who struggles to care for their sick child amid a dystopian future, leading to Ben’s participation in the titular competition.
—Matt Grobar, Deadline, 21 Oct. 2024
In this young adult, dystopian fantasy, Benji, a trans teenager, has escaped from a fundamentalist cult that raised him and decimated the world’s population.
—Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY, 20 Oct. 2024
On the surface, Off the Grid is most comparable to Elysium, Blomkamp’s dystopian film starring Matt Damon as a factory worker who dons an experimental exoskeleton to fight his way off Earth and onto a luxurious space station fitted with medical technology that can cure his cancer.
—Issy Van Der Velde, Rolling Stone, 19 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for dystopian 
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024
Lawson plays Sheila, the wife of Glen Powell’s Ben, who struggles to care for their sick child amid a dystopian future, leading to Ben’s participation in the titular competition.
—Matt Grobar, Deadline, 21 Oct. 2024
In this young adult, dystopian fantasy, Benji, a trans teenager, has escaped from a fundamentalist cult that raised him and decimated the world’s population.
—Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY, 20 Oct. 2024
On the surface, Off the Grid is most comparable to Elysium, Blomkamp’s dystopian film starring Matt Damon as a factory worker who dons an experimental exoskeleton to fight his way off Earth and onto a luxurious space station fitted with medical technology that can cure his cancer.
—Issy Van Der Velde, Rolling Stone, 19 Oct. 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.
Cite this Entry
“Dystopian.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dystopian. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.
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