never-never

[ nev-er-nev-er ]

noun

1. never-never land.
2. British Slang. hire-purchase system.

adjective

1. not real or true; imaginary or ideal; illusory:

   the never-never world of the cinema.

never-never

noun

1. the hire-purchase system of buying
2. remote desert country, as that of W Queensland and central Australia

adjective

1. imaginary; idyllic (esp in the phrase never-never land )

Word History and Origins

Origin of never-never¹

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

"It laid bare how incompatible it was to have intelligence services operating in a secret constitutional never-never land and allowed them to become publicly accountable."

From BBC

Calling the “audit” an “adventure in never-never land,” Sellers continued: “There was no fraud, there wasn’t an injection of ballots from Asia nor was there a satellite that beamed votes into our election equipment.”

From Washington Post

“The board has real work to do and little time to entertain this adventure in never-never land,” he said.

From Washington Times

So they’re selling cinema on the promise of familiarity, as a never-never land where nothing has really changed and there’s no global catastrophe to reckon with — except for the fictional ones on screen, of course.

From Washington Post

While it’s eventually seen that some of the kids have mobile phones, Taormina purposefully dresses his cast and designs their environment in a way that throws them into a sort of temporal never-never land.

From New York Times