This week’s theme
Toponyms from fiction

This week’s words
grimgribber
ecotopia
ruritanian
edenic
stepford

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(roor-i-TAY-nee-uhn)

MEANING:

adjective: Relating to an imaginary place characterized by romance, adventure, and intrigue.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Ruritania, a fictional Central European kingdom, in the novel The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope. Earliest documented use: 1894.

USAGE:

“When the writer J.G. Ballard turned down an offer of a CBE in 2003, he did so not only because he found it ‘ludicrous’ that there should still be such a thing as an ‘Order of the British Empire’ but also because the whole honours system was ‘a Ruritanian charade that helps to prop up our top-heavy monarchy’.”
Alexander Chancellor; Long Life; The Spectator (London, UK); Jun 30, 2012.

See more usage examples of Ruritanian in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: