Dystopian

//dɪsˈtoʊ.pi.ən// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or pertaining to a dystopia.

    "If Suzanne Collins’ novel The Hunger Games turns up on middle-school curricula 50 years from now—and as accessible dystopian science fiction with allusions to early-21st-century strife, that isn’t out of the question—the lazy students of the future can be assured that they can watch the movie version and still get better than a passing grade."

  2. 2
    Dire; characterized by human suffering or misery.
Adjective
  1. 1
    as bad as can be; characterized by human misery wordnet
  2. 2
    of or pertaining to or resembling a dystopia wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dystopical

Example

More examples

"The film is set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future."

Etymology

From dystopia + -an.

More for "dystopian"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.