Zenda

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A fictional Ruritanian kingdom in Anthony Hope's 1894 adventure novel ; a small unincorporated community in parts of the United States
2. The imaginary central European realm from Anthony Hope's romantic adventure of 1894 ; a tiny rural settlement found in certain American states
3. An invented monarchy featured in a famous 1894 romance by Anthony Hope ; a little unincorporated town in the American Midwest and elsewhere

Etymology: Zenda is not a word from any language but a invented place name. Anthony Hope gave it to a castle in his novel "The Prisoner of Zenda," where the hero, an Englishman who looks exactly like the king of the fictional country of Ruritania, is drawn into a plot to rescue the monarch from his captors. The castle and the kingdom were both Hope's inventions, and Ruritania became the name for any imagined Central European setting of romance and intrigue. Because the name was made up for a story, it has no older meaning behind it. Its usefulness as a word came from the novel's popularity, which made the castle's name familiar enough that later writers borrowed it for similar settings and plots.