Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Impractical, unrealistic, or wildly fanciful: Describes ideas, plans, or theories that are not based in reality or are impossible to realize.
   • Relating to the fictional flying island of Laputa or its inhabitants: Pertaining to the imaginary land of Laputa, as depicted in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, which is inhabited by absurdly speculative and impractical intellectuals.

Usage Examples

• Adjective (Impractical):
  • His plan for a perpetual motion machine was dismissed as a laputan fantasy.
  • The committee rejected the laputan proposal to build a city in the clouds.
• Adjective (Relating to Laputa):
  • The novel's laputan society was obsessed with abstract mathematics to the point of absurdity.
  • She wrote a paper analyzing the laputan disregard for practical matters in Swift's satire.

Advanced Usage

• "laputan speculation": Refers to theorizing that is completely detached from practical considerations.
  • The economic debate was mired in laputan speculation with no connection to real-world data.
• "laputan project": Describes a scheme or endeavor that is grandiose but utterly unrealistic.
  • The government was criticized for funding another laputan project that was doomed to fail.

Variants and Related Words

• Laputa (Proper Noun): The name of the fictional flying island in , the source of the adjective.
• Visionary (Adj): Having or showing clear ideas about what should happen in the future. (Can be positive or, like , imply impracticality).
• Chimerical (Adj): Hoped for but illusory or impossible to achieve.
• Quixotic (Adj): Exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.

Synonyms

• Airy
• Speculative
• Utopian (when implying impractical idealism)
• Fanciful
• Unrealistic

Antonyms

• Practical
• Realistic
• Feasible
• Sensible
• Pragmatic

Related Idioms and Phrases

• "Castles in the air": Plans or hopes that have very little chance of happening. (This idiom shares the sense of fanciful impracticality conveyed by ).
  • Talking about colonizing Mars now is just building castles in the air.
• "Pipe dream": An unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme.
  • His idea of becoming a billionaire by next year is a complete pipe dream.

Adjective

1. not practical or realizable; speculative
   • airy theories about socioeconomic improvement
   • visionary schemes for getting rich
2. relating to or characteristic of the imaginary country of Laputa or its people