Xanadu
/ˈzænəduː/
Xanadu proper noun: the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty, now an archaeological site in Zhenglan, Xilingol, Inner Mongolia, China.
Proper noun
Xanadu
- The summer capital of the Yuan dynasty, now an archaeological site in Zhenglan, Xilingol, Inner Mongolia, China.
- In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea.1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: […] John Murray, […], by William Bulmer and Co. […]...
- Synonyms:
- Shangdu
Noun
Xanadu (plural Xanadus)
- A place full of beauty, happiness and wonder.
- A place where nobody dared to go
The love that we came to know
They call it Xanadu
And now, open your eyes and see
What we have made is real
We are in Xanadu1980, Jeff Lynne, “Xanadu” - That's from the poem of the legend of Kubla Kahn's palace in the lost valley of Xanadu! Alph was the river in the legend! Unca Scrooge, this is the road to Xanadu! You've hit the jackpot! The most wondrous valley on earth! The land of milk and honey!1991, Don Rosa, “Return to Xanadu”, in Uncle Scrooge, volumes 261-262, page 5
- Synonyms:
- heaven, paradise, Shangri-La
- A place where nobody dared to go
- An opulent building or resort that provides entertainment or luxurious living.
- “The United States in the twenties was dotted with a thousand Xanadus,” wrote movie-theater historian Ben Hall."1994, Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies, page 21
- The postmodern Xanadus that support this hallucination in the desert offer a particularly attractive paradise of the popular.2003, Jim Bell, Stephen Brown, David Carson, Marketing Apocalypse: Eschatology, Escapology and the Illusion of the End.
- Synonyms:
- pleasure palace, pleasuredome, Shangri-La
Examples of Xanadu in a sentence
- I'd had no dream of finding my own little Eden, my snowcapped paradise, my Xanadu in the Valley of the Sky.2013, Mary Daheim, The Alpine Xanadu, page 319:
- The Normans went Muslim with such remarkable style that even Muslim poets were soon praising the new Norman Xanadus.2011, John McPhee, Oranges, page 68:
- Under the blazing Nevada sun, a dozen Xanadus glittered with million-watt neon signs.2012, Mario Puzo, Fools Die, page 6:
- Elsewhere in Middle Harbour there are half a dozen other abandoned Xanadus.2012, Gavin Souter, Times & Tides: A Middle Harbour Memoir:
Synonyms of Xanadu
Forms of Xanadu
| plural | Xanadus |
|---|
Origin of Xanadu
From Mandarin 上都 (Shàngdū, “Upper Capital”). The first Romanized form comes from Marco Polo's writings in Italian as Shan-Du. In 1617, Purchas his Pilgrimage […] by Samuel Purchas was published in London, containing the phrase “In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace” on page 472. This was the inspiration for Coleridge's poem which uses the spelling Xanadu.
Questions about Xanadu
- What does Xanadu mean?
- Xanadu means the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty, now an archaeological site in Zhenglan, Xilingol, Inner Mongolia, China.
- How do you use Xanadu in a sentence?
- I'd had no dream of finding my own little Eden, my snowcapped paradise, my Xanadu in the Valley of the Sky.
- What part of speech is Xanadu?
- Xanadu can be a proper noun or a noun.
- How do you pronounce Xanadu?
- Xanadu is pronounced /ˈzænəduː/.
Words near Xanadu in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Xanadu (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Xanadu.wav.
Cite this entry: “Xanadu.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/xanadu. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.