What does the word Utopia mean, according to Laura Ashe on In Our Time?

Laura Ashe says Thomas More invented the word as a pun. It is not real Greek but sounds like two Greek coinages, one meaning a good or ideal place and the other meaning no place at all. More's working title was the Latin Nusquama, nowhere, so in Ashe's reading the primary sense was that the island does not exist, the opposite of how the word is used today.

The full 1516 title calls the book a truly golden account of the best state of a commonwealth, yet the Utopians in it despise gold.
The title pairs the best commonwealth and the new island without saying they are the same thing.

▸In their words

“The main thing he's doing, I think, is punning because it was possible.” Laura Ashe · at 12:59 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on In Our Time (2026-10-15). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode

Q2Why do the Utopians in Thomas More's Utopia make chamber pots out of gold?Q3Did Thomas More really want to abolish private property, according to Joanne Paul?Q4Is Thomas More's Utopia really a surveillance state, as Laura Ashe suggests?Q5What does Book One of Utopia say about hanging thieves and sheep eating men?Q6How was Thomas More's Utopia first translated and received, according to Cathy Shrank?Q7Was Thomas More's Utopia a response to Machiavelli's The Prince, per In Our Time?Q8How did Thomas More's Utopia shape dystopian fiction and social science, per Laura Ashe?

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