subtopia

(sʌbˈtəʊpɪə)

(Human Geography) Brit suburban development that encroaches on rural areas yet appears to offer the attractions of country life to suburban dwellers

[C20: blend of suburb + Utopia]

subˈtopian adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

subtopia - monotonous urban sprawl of standardized buildings

conurbation, sprawl, urban sprawl - an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities

Britain, Great Britain, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland; `Great Britain' is often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom

Translations

subtopia

[ˌsʌbˈtəʊpɪə] N (hum) → (vida f de los) barrios mpl exteriores

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

Gillian Darley's Return to Subtopia will be broadcast on 7 May on BBC Radio 4.

Is London's skyscraper boom damaging the city?

They are a melange of the old and obscure and I shall attempt with considered concinnity to give them an airing for the edification of philistines who may be obambulating through subtopia and beyond, and hope this will not be considered knavery or the act of a rapscallion or dismissed as simple flapdoodle but accepted as an exercise by an honest opsimath.

Warriers on mission to defend old and obscure words

He examines utopian and eutopian writing, including pornotopia, ecotopia and motopia as well as dystopias (or "kakotopias") such as subtopia, phrenotopia, agathopia and queutopia.

Marguerite Corporaal and Evert Jan van Leeuwen (eds.). 2010. The Literary Utopias of Cultural Communities, 1790-1910

The British trumpeter Tom Arthurs is not only playing with his band Subtopia at noon on Sunday, also in the Town Hall Pillar Room, but is getting right down to basics on Monday morning with a trumpet masterclass.

All that jazz; The Cheltenham Jazz Festival is here. Peter Bacon highlights some of the top acts appearing

He was deeply impressed by a special issue of the Architectural Review on the repetitive nature of English town centres from Southampton to Carlisle, just being rebuilt after the war, which introduced the word 'subtopia'.

More houses in England's green and pleasant land

Author of a fine history of architectural photography, Building with Light, he knows Smith's work intimately but also its context: the explorations of Britishness by such figures as Eric de Mare and John Piper, and the role of The Architectural Review as it focused first on 'the functional tradition' and then 'subtopia'.