Laputan


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La·pu·tan

 (lə-pyo͞ot′n)
adj.
Absurdly impractical or visionary, especially to the neglect of more useful activity.

[After the flying island of Laputa, in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where absurd projects are pursued and useful pursuits neglected.]

La·pu′tan n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Adj.1.Laputan - relating to or characteristic of the imaginary country of Laputa or its people
2.Laputan - not practical or realizable; speculative; "airy theories about socioeconomic improvement"; "visionary schemes for getting rich"
utopian - characterized by or aspiring to impracticable perfection; "the dim utopian future"; "utopian idealists"; "recognized the utopian nature of his hopes"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
An encampment of the New People's Army (NPA) was discovered by the troops of the 103rd Division Reconnaissance Company (DRC) while they were conducting combat operations in Sitio Laputan, Barangay Tambobong, Baguio District last Aug.
2 Mari Erquita; Bandolis from Tubod, Lanao, took the girls' 14-U plum with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Gupit; unranked Christine Gula-Gula from Dapitan downed May Laputan, 6-3, 6-2, for the girls' 12-U title; and local bet third seed Mark Barrios ruled the 10-unisex division with a 4-0, 4-1 romp over May Gonzales.
This time he is confronted with a language that is more familiar than those he has previously experienced, the Laputan language being "not unlike in sound to the Italian", which causes him to answer in that same language, "hoping at least that the cadence might be more agreeable" to his listeners (412).
In the view of our Laputan foreign-policy establishment, what is happening in Syria and elsewhere is a conflict between "democracy" and dictatorship.
H But in his lampooning of the Laputan experimenters and their ridiculous productions, Swirl is satirizing not only natural philosophy but also its presentation in utopian terms and, thus, the utopian texts that had heralded the wonders of the new technologies a century before.
Floating beyond financial niceties, the world of brand management deals not only in dollars, but also in units called "return in media profile." To the uninitiated, this index presents a curiously laputan mode of accounting.
that would be merely as bad as telling a dream -- unless perhaps I do it in the manner of the Laputan printing press -- that is I put down Mountains, Rivers Lakes, dells, glens, Rocks, and Clouds, With beautiful enchanting, gothic picturesque fine, delightful, enchanting, Grand, sublime -- a few Blisters & c -- and now you have our journey thus far(4)
Certainly this is Armantrout's most audacious poem to date, getting away with something indeed in its comedic treatment of self-arousal and menstruation (think of how many solemnly declarative poems have addressed those subjects);(19) in its mockery of the (undoubtedly male) doctor and his Laputan etymology (or is it geometry?), able to divide a seven-letter word into equal segments; in its mixing of vulgarity ("'the way you lie there'") and euphemism ("down there"); above all in its use of the manner of fairy tale and parable for purposes of a counterstory, one that the "good mother" herself would never tell.