Utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More in 1516 as the name of his ideal commonwealth, from Ancient Greek ou ('not') plus topos ('place'), literally 'no-place', with a pun on eutopia ('good place'). In current use it is a noun meaning "an imagined place of ideal perfection in laws, government, and society". That sense is explained by the older material without requiring a speculative semantic step: the inherited or borrowed base supplies the field of meaning, while the English formation fixes its modern role. The surface form is compositional: its joined elements remain visible in the modern word. The historical chain includes Ancient Greek ou and Ancient Greek topos. Derived forms include utopian, utopianism, and utopist. As a result, the modern word is best read as a negative, privative, or reversative formation built on a historically older base.