potable gold

From potable + gold. From being something drinkable that is like gold.
* (alchemy): from being an elixir that confers the untarnishability and eternity of gold to a person

This tradition found its way to the West in the notion of ‘potable gold’ (aurum potabile), a medicine that, if drunk, would cure all manner of ills.

2002, Philip Ball, The Elements: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, published 2004, page 60:

(alchemy) A theoretical substance which would confer eternal life on the drinker.


Gradgrind

From Thomas Gradgrind, a pedantic teacher in Charles Dickens' Hard Times (1854).

They do just what all the practical men of this practical age are doing, what even the Gradgrinds are doing: they embody ideas; they put thoughts into facts.

1860 June, “Representative Art”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 5, number 32:

“I was purring. I'm a Gradgrind—it's quite right—anything you can say about Herbert Spencer, vivisectors, materialistic Science or Atheists, applies without correction to me. […]”

He was a veritable Gradgrind for facts, facts, facts.

1916, Arthur B. Reeve, The Ear in the Wall:

One who relies solely on scientific measurements and observable facts without taking human nature into consideration.


gobbo

2003, Seth Kerin, The Crimson Staff, Fultus Books (publ.), page 102.
Several goblins lay dead around the campsite, but many had escaped without serious injury. "Dang gobbos." Ged cursed, spitting on a goblin corpse as he yanked his heavy axe […]

2008, R.D. Henham, Black Dragon Codex, Wizards of the Coast (publ.), page 55.
“... And so I were tellin’ him, that ain’t no way to treat yer gobbos! Ya gots to beat goblins till their ears start workin’—then they’ll listen to ya.”

I speak a little bit of gobbo.


uncloak

en-verb

uncloak (third-person singular simple present uncloaks, present participle uncloaking, simple past and past participle uncloaked)

uncloaks (present singular third-person)
uncloaking (participle present)
uncloaked (participle past)
uncloaked (past)

Don't try to target the Klingons as they uncloak, you won't have time. Just use the phasers to make a nofly zone between us and the Takagi.

2011, David Mack, Rise Like Lions (Star Trek: Mirror Universe):

(intransitive, science fiction) To become visible again by turning off a cloaking device.


otaku

[əʊ̯ˈtʰɑːkʰuː]

[o̞ʊ̯ˈtʰɑkʰu]

From Japanese オタク (otaku, “anime obsessive, geek”) originally used in reference to the 1982 Macross fandom, from the honorific form お宅 (otaku, “you”), from the honorific form 宅 (taku, “home”).

bor

(fandom slang) One with an obsessive interest in something, particularly (originally derogatory) obsessive Japanese fans of anime or manga.

أُوتَاكُو

one with an obsessive interest in something such as anime or manga

死宅

one obsessed with Japanese things/weeaboo


replicant

en-adj

replicant (comparative more replicant, superlative most replicant)

more replicant (comparative)
most replicant (superlative)

From Latin replicāns, present participle of replicō. The science fiction sense was coined by David Peoples in the 1982 film Blade Runner.


replicant

(science fiction) A robot or artificial being that is an exact copy of a genuine lifeform, especially a human.


nonhuman

nonhuman animals

nonhuman agents

Much, perhaps most, Minecraft fiction follows the robinsonade template, emphasizing the day-to-day life of a character, including nonhuman characters, striving to survive and thrive in a recognizably Minecraftian world by utilizing its resources.

2020, Michael T. Wilson, “Minecraft Fiction”, in Anne H. Stevens, Molly C. O’Donnell, editors, The Microgenre: A Quick Look at Small Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN:


snicker-snack

Coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky, probably relating to snickersnee.

(nonce word) An onomatopoeia of unclear meaning, possibly referring to sharpness, or the sound of a blade cutting through something.


Nosferatu

/ˌnɒsfəˈɹɑːtuː/

Possibly from a Romanian word for vampire (cf. nesuferit). The term achieved popular currency through Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and F. W. Murnau's 1922 German film Nosferatu. See also: Wikipedia's article on the etymology of the word (and the references there).

"Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss [...] you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have filled us with horror."

1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, published 1993, page 192:

Those of us who have dabbled much in the lore of the nosferatu tend to think of them as imaginative creations of the German and English Romantics, and not without reason.

2018 November, Kevin Jackson, “Something to Sink Your Teeth Into”, in Literary Review:

While it may have been capable of flight, it almost certainly spent its time on Hateg crawling about on its wrists, with its great leathery wings folded over its body like a shroud. A gigantic kind of Nosferatu comes to mind.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 26:


pantaloon

en-noun

pantaloon (countable and uncountable, plural pantaloons)

Borrowed from French pantalon, from Italian Pantalone (a character in Commedia dell'arte), from Spanish Pantaleon (surname).

(chiefly in the plural) Trousers reminiscent of the tight-fitting leggings traditionally worn by a pantaloon.


Eloi

From French Éloi, from Medieval Latin Eligius, chiefly after Saint Eligius, from Latin ēligere (“to pick, to choose from”) + -ius (“-y: forming adjectives and names”).


garuda

A large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology. Garuda is the son of Vinata.

গৰুল

large mythical bird in Hindu and Buddhist mythology


slan

From Slan (1940) by A. E. van Vogt, a science fiction novel about persecuted—yet physically, mentally and morally superior—telepathic mutant humans. In the novel they are named after their alleged creator, Samuel Lann.

The idea of a national government, covering all the slan race and nobody else, is seen in the many drives for a general fan organization.

1944, John Bristol Speer, “F - Fascism”, in Fancyclopedia:

Here, at least once a month, the slans from Michigan gathered for sneak previews of forthcoming WARPS, to criticise some Rappian manuscript which Art was polishing for pro submission, or to talk about various subjects as fans are wont to do, and drink beer, pop, consume beans, dogs, chips, or eclairs.

1950 September, Charles Stuart Metchette, “Michigan Memories”, in Spacewarp, number 42, pages 72–77:

Fen gather in clubhouses called slanshacks, "slan" meaning a biologically mutated superman.

1955, Arthur Koestler, The Trail of the Dinosaur and Other Essays, page 143:

(dated, fandom slang) A fan of science fiction.


East Jesus

So G. and I had a good piss-up together, as happy with one another as if we were both natives of East Jesus, Kansas, newly met in the Rue Scribe.

c. 1954, Behan, Brendan, The Letters of Brendan Behan (1992), page 55

I'm just a plain hillbilly from East Jesus Nowhere with this adopted child that everybody keeps on telling me is dumb as a box of rocks.

1998, Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees: A Novel, page 102:

Only gave him seventy-five for the night; said he'd get the rest if he worked a black rodeo way the hell and gone over in East Jesus, Texas.

1999, Sarah Bird, Virgin of the Rodeo, page 70:

Their staffs were also well looked after—except for the French, whom we packed off to motels in East Jesus in retaliation for their high-handedness toward the American delegation when they had been hosts a year earlier.

2000, David Gergen, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership Nixon to Clinton, page 151:

(US) A fictional remote, backward, inhabited place.


Disneyland

The archetypical theme park, located in Anaheim, California. Other Disneyland theme parks exist in other cities such as Chessy (Seine-et-Marne, France), Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.


Humpty Dumpty

English Civil War
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty#Meaning

Possibly baby talk forms of Humphrey, since Dump and Dumphry have been recorded as pet forms of this given name. Various suggestions have been offered for the original meaning of the nursery rhyme, chiefly concerning the English Civil War, although none has received general acceptance.

... she sits perched high up, astride a man's saddle, looking in her balloon garments, and doubtless feeling, more insecure than Humpty Dumpty on the wall.

1907, Annie van Sommer et al., Our Moslem Sisters..., page 210:

For many people, traditional Christian theology is a Humpty-Dumpty: it has tumbled from its perch and can't be put together again.

2009, Philip Kennedy, A Modern Introduction to Theology: New Questions for Old Beliefs:

A nursery rhyme character who falls from a wall and breaks irreparably in the manner of an egg; (figurative) by extension, anything similarly fragile, irreparably damaged, or insecure, precariously at risk of such irreparable damage.


mad as a March hare

Possibly from the boisterous behaviour of hares in their breeding season.

[S]he was with childe in hir huſbande his abſence, or that hir louer vſed hir fondly in open preſence, as the preſumption was not onely vehement, but alſo the fact too too apparent. Hir vnfortunat huſband had not ſooner notice gyuen him vpon his returne of theſe ſorowfull newes, then his fingers began to nibble, hys teeth to grinne, hys eyes to trickle, his eares to dindle, his heade to dezell, in ſomuch as his heart being ſkeared wyth ialouſie, & his wits enſtalde through Phrenſie, he became as madde, as a marche hare.

1577, Richard Stanyhurst [i.e., Richard Stanihurst], “[The Historie of Irelande […].] A Treatise Contayning a Playne and Perfect Description of Irelande, […].”, in Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, folio 14, recto, column 1:


tommyknocker

Then he's down one of these adits, talking to the tommyknockers, more'n likely.

2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 335:

(folklore) A mythical creature, like a brownie or leprechaun, believed to live in underground tunnels; later associated with dead miners.


Cthulhic

en-adj

Cthulhic (comparative more Cthulhic, superlative most Cthulhic)

more Cthulhic (comparative)
most Cthulhic (superlative)

Of, or pertaining to, Cthulhu; monstrous.


555-2368, 1-555-321-2368, and (555)234-2368 are all 555 numbers; they aren’t real.

(Canada, US, fiction) Pertaining to a fake telephone number. The local exchange and area code number 555 was reserved in North American dialing plan for fictional numbers, prior to the 21st century.


Jedi mind trick

en-noun

Jedi mind trick (plural Jedi mind tricks)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Jedi mind trick.wav

From the Star Wars films, the first of which—Star Wars—was released in 1977. In the films, members of the Jedi order are able to use a metaphysical power called the Force to implant suggestions in other people’s minds to induce them to act as the Jedi wish.

I watched the show to see what kind of guy he was, and the character on the show ain't too bright, so I figured if he came up to me I could use the Jedi mind trick on him. Mr T would go, “I heard you did some jokes about me!” “No, you didn't!” “Maybe I didn't!”

1987, Eddie Murphy Raw, spoken by Eddie Murphy:

Screamin’ “Brand new!”, when they just sanitized the old shit / Suppose it's just another clever Jedi mind trick

1998 September 29, “Thieves in the Night”, in Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, performed by Black Star:

You have to estimate your own starting weights, using trial and error. There's no way to get around it. I've met personal trainers who were phenomenally good at figuring out their clients' starting weights. […] Maybe it's some kind of Jedi mind trick. But unless you have one of those trainers, you have to figure it out on your own.

2005, Lou Schuler, Alwyn Cosgrove, “Charting Your Progress”, in The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle, London: Avery, →ISBN, part 4 (Programs), page 205:

"It's the Fourth Law of Magic," I said. "You aren't allowed to control the mind of another human. But … hell, it's of the first things a lot of these stupid kids try—the old Jedi mind trick. Sometimes they start with maybe getting homework overlooked by a teacher or convincing their parents to buy them a car.[…]"

2006 May 2, Jim Butcher, chapter 5, in Proven Guilty […] (The Dresden Files; 8), New York, N.Y.: Roc, →ISBN, page 27:

Brian was a good diversion. For every girl that went loopy over him, there was one less chick she had to worry about being in Craig's face. All she had to do was stay as far away from Brian as possible … you know, just in case that Jedi mind trick thing melted the BF shield.

2007, Paula Chase, “Hottie Jedi Mind Tricks”, in Don’t Get It Twisted (A Del Rio Bay Clique Novel), New York, N.Y.: Dafina Books for Young Readers, Kensington Publishing Corp., →ISBN, page 60:

(idiomatic) A mental feat such as apparently inducing someone to act a certain way or reading someone's mind, achieved as if by magic or telepathy.

Jedi
Star Wars
Star Wars Databank
the Force

絕地控心術 /绝地控心术

mental feat achieved as if by magic or telepathy


positronic

From positron + -ic. The science fiction sense was coined by American science fiction author Isaac Asimov in 1941 in his short story "Liar!".

coin

By exact count, there are seventy-five thousand, two hundred and thirty-four operations necessary for the manufacture of a single positronic brain.

1941 May, Isaac Asimov, “Liar!”, in Astounding Science-Fiction, volume 27, number 3:

(science fiction) Of or pertaining to a supposed analogue of electronics using positrons


sky marshal

(fiction) A military rank in fiction for air force, space force, or armed forces, usually the topmost rank


shifter

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shifter.wav

(mythology, science fiction, fantasy) A shape-shifter; a person or other being capable of changing their physical form, especially a lycanthrope.


holocube

One wall was a huge holo cube displaying Geneva's table of organization, a spidery orange pyramid with tens of thousands of names connected by lines, from the mayor at the top to the “corridor security” people at the base.

1976, Joe Haldeman, The Forever War, New York: Ballantine Books, page 113:

He snapped a holo-cube into the projector and switched on. I gasped and shrank back in my seat as a great crustacean sprang into being in front of me, blind, chitinous, rust-red, and malevolent.

1978, Charles Sheffield, “The Deimos Plague”, in Stellar Science Fiction Stories, n 4, New York: Del Rey, p 146

And on a little table beside the bed, he found a holocube with a tiny picture of a woman wearing a yellow dress in it. When he moved the ’cube, the woman waved at him and laughed.

1990, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, volume 79, page 113:

Not a cassette, not an infodisk, not a holocube, but an actual book, with a cover and binding and pages.
Used in Flashback: The Quest for Identity (video game), Star Wars, Tyrian, and Spider-Man (1994 TV series).

1992, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man, New York: Doubleday, p 25

(science fiction) A cube-shaped device that shows or stores holographic pictures.


rabbit hole

rabbit + hole. Extended senses reference Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice travels down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world.

These mushrooms will take you down the rabbit hole, man.

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

1999, The Wachowskis, 0:29:05 from the start, in The Matrix, spoken by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne):

Tumbling down the rabbit hole, she encountered a whole new level of existence where the laws of physics were turned upside down, shaken inside out and taken to the cleaners.

2012, Linda Hoy, The Effect, John Hunt Publishing, →ISBN, page vii:

(usually with article) A way into such a world.


uncloaked

The result: half of the arriving vessels dematerialize in brilliant flashes, while the other half desperately reposition by a few thousand kilometers. This affords a multi-pronged force of uncloaked harriers opportunity to engage in open beam attacks, swiftly destroying another third.

2013 March 19, Greg Bear, String 25, in Halo: Silentium (Forerunner Saga; 3), New York: Tor, →ISBN, page 213:

(science fiction) rendered visible again by turning off or disabling cloaking technology.


archmage

/ˈɑːtʃmeɪdʒ/

/ˈɑːɹt͡ʃmeɪd͡ʒ/


spellcaster

One who casts spells; a magician; a sorcerer.


bottomless pit

1769, The Bible, King James Version, Oxford Standard Text, Revelation, 9:11,
And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.


-mancer

I’ve always thought it was a shame us Cullenmancers missed out on a romance tarot with how beautiful all their designs are.

As a Solasmancer I don't expect more, but I'd hope somehow Solas' experience with the Inquisition has an impact on him going forward.

I agreed with some and disagreed with others, so I'm putting it out there for my fellow Galemancers: what's Gale's [zodiac] sign?

2023 December 22, Theia-Euryphaessa, Reddit:

(fandom slang) A suffix attached to a video game character's name to create a word for a player who romances that character in the game.


and your little dog too

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-and your little dog too.wav

From a line spoken by the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz to Dorothy and her dog Toto: "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!".

(humorous) A statement that not only will the person being addressed be punished but their conspirators will also.


cowardly lion

After a character in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).

"This $13 billion mutual fund, which calls itself "classic growth investing, the Janus way," is in reality a cowardly lion." -Forbes

"California is right; we trust Washington state will follow in court. Earlier court decisions against the EPA's Cowardly Lion position on global warming suggest legal action may have good prospects." -Seattle Post Intelligencer

"On the cowardly “lion” derisive nickname: The 49ers PR people are saying that Georgatos/Brown merely overheard a few players joking about that in the locker room, and that Smith was in on it–it was just jocularity among QBs, meaning nothing, and used out of context in the story. That’s what they’re saying." -http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/kawakami/2007/12/12/whos-with-me-on-alex-smiths-side-plus-more-notes-on-the-smith-nolan-feud-and-clumsy-attempted-cover-up/

(figuratively) A person who acts tough but misses a golden opportunity out of fear or cowardice.

Cowardly Lion
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz


yellow brick road

en-noun

yellow brick road (plural yellow brick roads)

From the classic film The Wizard of Oz and the book series on which it was based. Originally the literal road to the Emerald City, which was paved with yellow bricks possibly to invoke the notion of gold.

But we're coming up on a bend in the yellow brick road, and going 'round it could cause the party lights to go dark quickly.

2007 December 10, Morgan Housel, “The Impending Destruction of the U.S. Economy: Part 1”, in The Motley Fool:

But for Clinton the yellow brick road that led inevitably to the Democratic nomination has suddenly become a little bumpy.

2007 December 21, “Hillary's mountain gets higher”, in The Sydney Morning Herald:

Smash the emergency glass, press the big red button and just STOP. Step off the Yellow Brick Road, get mixed up with some flying monkeys and throw yourself into all manner of trouble. Trust me. IT'S YOUR LAST CHANCE.

2011 August 19, Emma Kennedy, “Relax - a gap year's supposed to be fun”, in The Guardian:

(idiomatic, often humorous) A proverbial path to a Promised Land of one's hopes and dreams.


cereology

From Ceres (“Roman goddess of agriculture”) + -ology.

suffix

[…] the array of experts who have collaborated to found the Centre for Crop Circle Studies and co-author The Crop Circle Enigma, the parents of cereology […]

1990 October–December, New Scientist, volume 128, London: New Science Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 61:

The result of all this has been to throw the world of cereology into a state of total confusion. All its previous certainties have been demolished.

1991, “Editorial notes”, in The Cereologist: The Journal for Crop Circles Studies, Shepton Mallet, Somerset: The Cereologist, OCLC 877349523, page 5; quoted in Gordon Stein, “Crop Circles”, in The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996, ISBN 978-1-57392-021-6, page 185, column 1

Saucer enthusiasts argued that the cropland patterns marked the landing spots of UFOs bearing visitors from space. Believers in the paranormal claimed the circles radiated mysterious energy forces. The patterns spawned a kind of intellectual cottage industry: no fewer than 35 Britons claim to be experts on the phenomenon. A new scientific discipline, cereology, emerged. It is practiced by members of the Circles Effect Research Unit, a privately funded group headed by Wiltshire-based physicist Terence Meaden.

1991 September 23, Leon Jaroff, “It happens in the best circles”, in Time, archived from the original on 2016-11-11:

The world needed to be educated about the mysteries of cereology, and that knowledge base had not been disseminated widely enough for my more "unusual" theories to be accepted, or at least considered, with reason and open-mindedness.

2003, Colin Andrews, Stephen J. Spignesi, “The Path”, in Crop Circles: Signs of Contact, Franklin Lakes, N.J.: New Page Books, →ISBN, page 29, column 1:

The investigation, or practice, of creating crop circles.


Lares

en-noun

Lares pl (normally plural, singular Lar)

From Latin Lares, plural form of lār, from Etruscan [Term?].

Coordinate term: lemures

(Roman mythology) The household deities watching over one's family and tutelary deities watching over some public places.


happy ending

And how was this happy ending to be brought about? Why, by this very eaſy and trite expedient; to wit, by reforming Lovelace, and marrying him to Clariſſa.

1784, The Novelist's Magazine, volume XV, London: Harrison and Co., page 1263, column 1:

The heroine was killed, and since then the happy ending has only been preserved in an appendix in the play.

1827 June 8, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 4, column 3:

Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending.

1930, Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness:

Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending.

1944, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 1, in The Razor’s Edge […], 1st American edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., →OCLC, section i, page 1:

Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?

1957 July 6, What’s Opera, Doc?, spoken by Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc):

Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.

1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 25:

And she said: / "Don't you know that storybook loves, / Always have a happy ending."

1987, “Storybook Love”, Willy DeVille (music):

(literature) A clichéd conclusion in which all loose ends are tied up and all main characters are content.


happily ever after

happily ever after (plural happily ever afters)

A story with such a happy ending, such as a romance novel or fairy tale.


ifrit

→ Japanese: イフリート (ifurīto)

Then she flew firmament-wards to circle it, as was her custom, and met an Ifrit on the wing who saluted her and she said to him, "Whence comest thou?"

1885, Richard F. Burton, chapter XXI, in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume I, The Burton Club, page 211:

(Arab mythology) A demon, evil spirit, often associated with the underworld.


lindworm

Cognate with Old Norse linnormr (“constrictor snake”), Norwegian lindorm (“serpent”), German Lindwurm (“dragon”).

cog

A draconic creature, similar to a wyvern.


BG

Along the way, a host of NPCs will join your party—and, as proven in the BG games, no one does NPCs better than BioWare.

2004 February, Jeff Green, “[Reviews] Knights of the Old Republic: BioWare and LucasArts deliver a brilliant Star Wars RPG”, in Jeff Green, editor, Computer Gaming World, number 235, New York, N.Y.: Ziff Davis Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 61, column 1:

All BG fans have a soft spot for Minsc, the ranger with one too many conks on the noggin and his famous Space Hamster, Boo. […] There’s a lot of great user-made content out there for the BG series.

2005 December, William Abner, “Baldur’s Gate: Closet Classic (1998)”, in The 2006 Gamer’s Tome of Ultimate Wisdom: An Almanac of Pimps, Orcs, and Lightsabers, Indianapolis, Ind.: Que Publishing, →ISBN, page 19, columns 1–2:

Interestingly, there’s no alignment system in Dragon Age, unlike previous BG games.

2008 August, “First Shots: Dragon Age: Origins”, in PCGZine, number 21:

When David [Gaider] was hired, BioWare was still at the Whyte Avenue site, ramping up work on Baldur’s Gate II. “I didn’t know anything about BioWare, but had heard of BG I,” David says.

2020 November, Ben Gelinas, “BioWare Labs”, in BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development, Milwaukie, Ore.: Dark Horse Books, →ISBN, part 3 (From Ambition to Reality), page 175, column 1:

(Can we date this quote?), (Please provide the book title or journal name):

(video games) Initialism of Baldur’s Gate (series).

Starting off as a half-elf ranger with a stick, Scooteris was kind of cool by the end of BG and its expansion, with +2 armor and a longbow. But it’s not until TOB [Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal] that he gets equipment that can kill with one blow.

2001 October, Thierry Nguyen, “BioWare gives gamers a fitting send-off to its epic role-playing game: This Is the End, My Only Friend”, in Jeff Green, editor, Computer Gaming World, number 207, New York, N.Y.: Ziff Davis Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 86:

The Baldur’s Gate series (BG with its expansion pack and sequel/expansion pack) has sold nearly 4 million units worldwide. […] Role-playing games like BG also more complicated and required additional QA [quality assurance] time and completely different QA processes.

2003, Erik Bethke, “What Makes Game Development Hard?”, in Game Development and Production (Wordware Game Developer’s Library), Plano, Tex.: Wordware Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, pages 22, column 1, and 24, column 2:

BG’s pausable combat system was a landmark for tactical RPGs, and Dragon Age wants to recreate that same sense of combat orchestration. […] Talky party members with big personalities were a staple of BG, but having thousands of pixels instead of a few dozen to render your allies’ personas means BioWare is eager to develop new favorites for its fans. We’re not sure they’ll be as off-the-wall as Minsc from BG2 […]

2009 March, “Dragon Age: Origins”, in Gary Steinman, editor, PC Gamer, number 185 / volume 16, number 03, South San Francisco, Calif.: Future US, Inc., →ISSN, pages 32–33:

BG maps (75 in total) represent mostly indoor environments while WIII [Warcraft III] maps (36 in total) – imaginary outdoor environments.

2018, Anton Andreychuk, Natalia Soboleva, Konstantin Yakovlev, “eLIAN: Enhanced Algorithm for Angle-Constrained Path Finding”, in Sergei O. Kuznetsov, Gennady S[imeonovich] Osipov, Vadim L. Stefanuk, editors, Artificial Intelligence: 16th Russian Conference, RCAI 2018, Moscow, Russia, September 24–27, 2018, Proceedings (Communications in Computer and Information Science; 934), Cham, Zug: Springer, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 213:

Baldur’s Gate
w:Baldur's Gate (video game)

Initialism of Baldur’s Gate (the first game).


SG

en-noun

SG (countable and uncountable, plural SGs)

(basketball) Initialism of shooting guard.


SG

Although Supergirl fans will relish page 4, I believe the first panel of 5 says it all: after a full force ramming by SG, PG just casually tosses her into a wall. Now *that's* Power Girl.

1997 October 25, Lightning, “REVIEW Power Girl #1, uhm, I mean Supergirl #16”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.universe (Usenet), message-ID <62tta5$a7g$1@206.230.70.77>:

Actually, a point could be made that the animated Supergirl is much more like Power Girl than the pre Crisis Supergirl.
For one thing she adopted the name Karen (Karen Starr was the name Kara Zor-L created), also she wears PG's costume colors and has a strong resentment toward's Clark's overprotectiveness. The only difference is that the animated SG has the Kara Zor-El personality more than she does Power Girl's.

1998 May 6, CaptT...@webtv.net, “Re: Why is TV kind of pre-Crisis and comics Post-Crisis”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.universe (Usenet), message-ID <6iouoe$1jf$1@newsd-134.iap.bryant.webtv.net>:

I kinda hate how they made Power Girl (Kara/SG pre-Crisis on World 2 or 3?) evil and a clone of SG. One of my fav comics growing up was Supes, and PG and I think Green Arrow going after Vandal Savage.

2005 September 21, tan...@bellsouth.net, “Re: JLU - WOW”, in alt.tv.cartoon-network (Usenet), message-ID <SL7Ye.4284$xg3.1881@bignews4.bellsouth.net>:

(comics) Initialism of Supergirl (“DC Comics superheroine”).


alternative universe

alternative universe (plural alternative universes)

This mirroring was marked out by the way in which the Federation of Planets, a voluntary association of different worlds, never existed in the alternative universe; instead we find ourselves confronting a vicious militaristic Terran empire.

2022 June 13, S. Sayyid, Recalling the Caliphate – Decolonization and World Order:

(literature, narratology) An imaginary realm, often a variant form of the real world, depicting a different way events could have unfolded or the universe could have functioned.


MacGuffin

Alfred Hitchcock
MacGuffin#History_and_use
Ulster

Used by Alfred Hitchcock, as an arbitrary Scottish surname. The actual name comes from Ulster: Mc- (“son of”) + Irish dubh (“black”) + Irish Fionn (literally “fairheaded”).
See also Wikipedia's MacGuffin § History and use.

af

" […] But we wound up realizing you really can't top yourself. You just tell a different story and hope the new MacGuffin is as compelling as the last MacGuffin."

2000, Steven Spielberg, Lester D. Friedman, Brent Notbohm, Steven Spielberg: Interviews:

A paleontologist lately returned from an expedition to Wyoming, where he unearthed the bones of the first brontosaurus (and supplied guns to the Indians on behalf of the Foreign Office, which had succeeded in its policy of balkanizing the North American continent) Mallory comes into possession of the MacGuffin during a Derby Day encounter with Byron's daughter (and Babbage's protégée) Ada. Thereafter he is hounded by a whole rogue's gallery of villains bent on reclaiming the MacGuffin.

(narratology) A plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.


movieverse

(fandom slang) The fictional universe of a work as presented in its movie version, as opposed to, e.g. a television series or a novel.


Cytherean

/ˌsɪ.ðəˈɹi.ən/

From Cythera, from Ancient Greek Κύθηρα (Kúthēra) + -an.

This view, that we see only a Cytherean cloud-canopy, has been confirmed by M. Landerer's observation of the non-polarised character of the light reflected by the crescent Venus; [...]

1893, Agnes M. Clerke, A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century, page 314:

But we should hesitate in assuming that the cytherean skies are usually overcast, for the reason that if the greater heat stimulates evaporation, the converse process of precipitation would be slackened for the same reason.

1898, E. M. Antoniadi, “Notes on the Rotation Period of Venus”, in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 63, page 319:

long before we landed spacecraft on Venus scientists deduced the temperature of the cytherean surface by studying Venus's radio emission.

1989, Jay M. Pasachoff, Astronomy, from the earth to the universe, 5, page 171:

In fact, Soviet astronomers once thought that the thick, dense Cytherean atmosphere might not let any sunlight reach the surface.

1991, Kenneth R. Lang, Charles Allen Whitney, Wanderers in space: exploration and discovery in the solar system, page 78:

(uncommon) Of or pertaining to the planet Venus; Venusian.


comicverse

(fandom slang) The fictional universe of a work as presented in its comics version, as opposed to, e.g. the TV series or the movie.


empathically

en-adv

empathically (comparative more empathically, superlative most empathically)

more empathically (comparative)
most empathically (superlative)


chess master

An exceptionally skillful chess player, especially one who has won a major competition.


dweomer

en-noun

dweomer (usually uncountable, plural dweomers)

Borrowed from Middle English dweomer, from Old English dwimor, from Proto-Germanic *dwemrą, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to whisk, raise dust, fume”).

der

(fantasy, games) The magical aura on an enchanted item; or more broadly, the aura of a magic spell having been cast while active.


what if

Dates back at least to Old English hwæt ġif, of the same meaning.

e se (with imperfect subjunctive or future subjunctive)

co kdyby

used to introduce speculation about future

co když

used to introduce speculation about past

What if Abraham Lincoln had not been assassinated? How might the Reconstruction of the Southern States have been handled?

Used to introduce a speculation about a past event. Often the basis for counterfactual historical interpretations.


lobsterman

So they are unprepared when the lobsterman, in a symbolic evolutionary leap, cracks his shell and steps out as the rock superman; and, unappreciated, he is left to attempt suicide at the end.

2014, Gerald M. Berkowitz, American Drama of the Twentieth Century:

The movie nods to Robot Monster by giving the lobsterman a sidekick who is a gorilla with a space helmet.

2016, Thomas Kent Miller, Mars in the Movies: A History:

As the show progressed during its second season, the Cold War villains disappeared and Voyage settled into an entertaining, kid-friendly “monster of the week” formula, with the Seaview crew encountering aquatic beasts, ghosts, aliens, dinosaurs, an evil brain, a lobsterman, an ancient alchemist, and even a werewolf.

2018, Michael Eury, “Irwin Allen: Voyage to the Bottom of...the Barrel??”, in RetroFan, volume 3, page 33:

Poor Lobsterman. Out there living among regular men with regular hands. Misunderstood. Impaired, Shunned.

2020, Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays, page 42:

(fiction) A fictional alien or monster that looks like a lobster/human hybrid.


Middle Earth

From Middle English middelerthe, myddyl erthe; an alteration of earlier middel-erde, middelerd; in turn an alteration of earlier middenerd; from Old English middaneard (“Middle Earth”), variant of middanġeard (“Earth, the world”, literally “the middle yard, enclosure, or realm”) mis- or reinterpreting its meaning, from Proto-Germanic *midjagardaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”) and *gʰórdʰos (“enclosure”). Cognate with Norwegian & English Midgard (q.v.) and Danish, Norwegian, & Swedish Midgård.

Not only are there maps of fantasy, such as those of Oz or Middle Earth, there are also hypotheses that have been made on the basis of mapped information

1994, Academic American Encyclopedia, Grolier, →ISBN, page 141:

The place might as well be called Noplace; it is a sort of magic island, like Thomas More’s Utopia or Homer’s Ogygia or Aristophane’s Cloudcuckooland—or Oz, or Narnia, or Middle Earth, or Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

1999, Frederick Turner, Shakespeare's Twenty-First Century Economics: The Morality of Love, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 180:

Some game ideas (such as the fanciful recreation of Middle Earth where the whole world is modeled with strong AI, 3D graphics capable of great indoor and terrain rendering, where an unlimited number of players can join in on both sides of epic conflict between good and evil) cannot be reconciled with the business parameters[…]

2003, Erik Bethke, Game Development and Production, Wordware Publishing,, →ISBN, page 76:

This is not an account of the Middle Ages, nor is it a tale from Middle Earth. This is our world.

2004, Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 27:

(fiction) Alternative form of Middle-earth: the setting of the Lord of the Rings series.


PWP

en-noun

PWP (countable and uncountable, plural PWPs)

(fandom slang) Initialism of porn without plot. A piece of erotic fanfiction with little regard to characterization or plot. (also "Plot? What plot?")


Eridian

(science fiction) a theoretical inhabitant of the dwarf planet Eris


Einstein-Rosen bridge

Einstein-Rosen bridge (plural Einstein-Rosen bridges)

From the names of the physicists who originally predicted it, Einstein (Albert Einstein) and Rosen (Nathan Rosen).

(physics) A type of wormhole that is inherently unstable and collapses before any information or matter can pass through.

ER=EPR

a conjecture about the nature of the universe that connects quantum physics to spacetime physics


transrealism

(science fiction) A literary mode that mixes the techniques of incorporating fantastic elements used in science fiction with the techniques of describing immediate perceptions from naturalistic realism.


hirs

S/he leaned forward and, to Selar's surprise, took the doctor's hand firmly between hirs.

1997 July 1, Peter David, Star Trek New Frontier (Book 1), Simon & Schuster, →ISBN:

She saw that Burgoyne was hefting hirs experimentally, sweeping it through the air. S/he twirled it around a few times, swung it back and forth.

2000, Peter David, Renaissance (Star Trek New Frontier: Excalibur #2), Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 157:

Ze takes my right hand in hirs and folds it into a fist.

2006 March 22, Leslie Feinberg, Drag King Dreams, New York: Carroll & Graf, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCC PS3556.E427 D73 2006, page 205:

(nonstandard) That which belongs to hir, theirs (singular). Possessive case of hir, used in place of a noun. Coordinate with his and hers.


hirself

head

hirself (a reflexive, third person singular, gender-neutral (or multigendered) personal pronoun)

en-pron

From hir + -self, following pattern of herself, himself, and itself.

It is here that Scratch has found hirself, bored out of hir mind but unable to sleep.

1996 June, Catilin Sullivan with Bornstein, Kate, Nearly Roadkill: an Infobahn erotic adventure, New York: Serpent's Tail, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, LCC PS3569.U3449 N43 1996, page 13:

Hir nostrils flared, and s/he stopped where s/he was, balancing hirself on hir toes without thought, as if poising hirself to make some sort of attack on whoever was there.

2000, Peter David, Renaissance (Star Trek New Frontier: Excalibur #2), Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →OL, page 229:

The working person discovered that hir own body belonged, not to the state or to the moralist or to the authoritarian doctor, but to hirself.

2001 June 9, Timothy Leary, chapter 8, in Your Brain is God, Oakland: Ronin Publishing, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCC BP570.L43 2001:

Alas, S/He then remembered S/He had created Hirself to be omnisciently all-knowing and all-seeing, so there were no possibilities S/He didn't already know.

2009, Pope Gus Rasputin Nishnabotna Sni-A-Bar, “Biscuitus”, in The Nuclear Platypus Biscuit Bible: A Spiritual Guide for the Disciples of Biscuitism, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 16:

Ze changed hir name to one of those New Testament names, and re-fashioned hirself into a soft, puffy, half-finished hermaphrodite nicknamed, The Pop n' Fresh Doe.

2010 October 12, Erica Lopez, The Girl Must Die: A Monster Girl Memoir, Hicken, Jeffrey, San Francisco: Monster Girl Media, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 143:

A harrowing series of violent and transphobic confrontations (including some with hir parents) drives Ludo to attempt to kill hirself by going to sleep in a freezer.

2011, Jody Norton, “Transchildren and the Discipline of Children's Literature”, in Kenneth B. Kidd, Michelle Ann Abate, editors, Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature, University of Michigan, →ISBN, LCC PS374.H63 O84 2011, page 306:

(reflexive) Hir, themselves; gender-neutral third-person singular object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject, coordinate with gendered himself and herself.

The trouble starts when gender (identity) ceases to be a reference point for connecting with a living growing person and is substituted for the person hirself.

1997 December 18, Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely, London, New York: Routledge, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, LCC HQ1075.B69 1998, page 164:

OOC talk and actions are taken to represent the player hirself and help other players to form an image, however tentative it may be, of that player.

2002, Frank Schaap, The Words That Took Us There: Ethnography in a Virtual Reality, Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, →ISBN, →OL, page 90:

Ash hadn't experienced much of that hirself, but s/he assumed it could happen.

2003 April 1, Susan Wright, Slave Trade (Slave Trade Trilogy #1), Pocket Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 97:

(emphatic) Sie; an intensive repetition of a gender-neutral subject, often used to indicate exclusiveness of that person as the only satisfier of a predicate.


Pied Piper

Short for Pied Piper of Hamelin, from pied and piper.

A folk tale or legend, dating back to the Middle Ages, about a rat-catcher in variegated attire, hired by the German town of Hamelin, who is not paid for his services and retaliates by luring away the local children by playing a flute.


omnisentience

In professional training programs, our strivings for omniscience, omnipotence, and omnisentience are stimulated, reinforced, and rewarded by the programs' faculties.

1972, Horace G. Whittington, Clinical Practice in Community Mental Health Centers, page 119:

(religion) Sensory awareness of all things.

Similar difficulties arise concerning the genesis of consciousness for the individual […] To escape these perplexities, the notion of omnisentience or panpsychism has often been put forward.

1974, Richard Spilsbury, Providence Lost: A Critique of Darwinism, page 65:

(religion, philosophy) The presence of sensory awareness in all things, or the doctrine that sensory awareness is universal.


omnisentient

Having omnisentience, a sensory awareness of all things.


Klabautermann

a water sprite (or nix) who assists sailors and fishermen on the Baltic Sea in their duties


omnilingual

Sir, my omnilingual Diorama having recently appeared in your useful publication, unconnected with some of the proofs that it has a just claim to such a comprehensive title, I shall now, with your permission, submit a prospectus of my universal characters contrasted with those which are most current over the Asiatic Peninsula, to the inspection of many Orientalists among your readers, very well qualified to decide impartially on the comparative merits of my scheme, at least in its application to the two indispensable languages for British India: namely, the Hindoostanee and Persian tongue.

1825, The Oriental Herald 1825-08: Volume 6, Issue 20, Open Court Publishing Company, page 302:

Because they are in some sense part of an omnilingual scholarly vocabulary, many instructors require their students to learn them and use them.

1960, The Voice Out of the Whirlwind: The Book of Job, Chandler Pub. Company, page 328:

The Sandpipers are omnilingual and sing in 11 different languages.

1969, Congressional Record, United States Congress, page 8252:

Having the ability to speak, or to understand, all languages.


omnilingual

A person who has the ability to speak, or to understand, all languages


centauress

1575. A CENTAURESS ſuckling a child. Cornelian.

1775, A catalogue of impressions in sulphur of antique and modern gems from which pastes are made and sold, page 55:

a Centaureſs with a young Man, ſhe holds a cymbal of gilt-bronze, the thrones of Venus and Mars, with their attributes, are in the fame picture

On a grass-plot of the most glossy verdure lies the centauress, with the whole equine part of her stretched on the ground, the hind feet extending backwards: while the upper female part is gently raised, and reclining on one elbow.

1820, Lucian of Samosata - Volume 1 - Page 772:

we see, from the emptied drinking-vessel of the Centauress before us, that the God did not neglect to requite them for their zeal

1837, Travels in Crete, Volume 2, page 12:

(fantasy) A female centaur; a she-centaur


dwarfess

Gibson and his wife were among the best English-born artists of their era. He was just three feet six inches in height; she was a dwarfess of the same proportion. This little couple had nine good-sized children, and having weathered the storms of civil war, lived happily together to old age.

1847, Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, volume XIII, page 247:

“I have no idea what they will do with it,” he [Vladimir Nabokov] said. “Of course they will have to change the plot. Perhaps they will make Lolita a dwarfess. Or they will make her 16 and Humbert 26. I just don’t know. It’s difficult to translate a book into a movie.”

1958 November 24, “Ithaca and 'Lolita'”, in Newsweek, page 155:

Beside him stood a dwarfess, even smaller than he was, snub-nosed and doll-faced.

1980, Lilli Palmer, A Time to Embrace, page 201:

1990, Tanith Lee, “White As Sin, Now”, in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (editors), The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Third Annual Collection, St. Martin's Press, 0-312-04450-X, page 328,
Heracty has been told that the flaxen dwarfess once had an adventure in the mock forest below the Palace.

She was a silver-haired, rather portly dwarfess...and the most powerful enchantress in Ilsdale, if not in the known world.

2004, James Haberlin, Brian Haberlin, But, But...Barbarians?, page 207:

Opening the door, I immediately see a stout dwarfess, probably the owner, behind a counter and a group of young cat-people girls in aprons serving food and alcohol to customers.

2014, Fujino Omori, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, volume 1, page 51:


Thor's hammer

kinetic energy weapon
kinetic energy weapon

(weaponry, slang, science fiction) An orbital drop hypervelocity kinetic energy weapon (KEW). A theoretical weapon, originating from a U.S. government study, Project Thor, from the 1950s.


badfic

en-noun

badfic (countable and uncountable, plural badfics)

(uncountable, fandom slang) Such fan fiction collectively.


pyromancer

(fantasy) One who has a magical ability to conjure or control fire.


white lady

white lady (countable and uncountable, plural white ladies)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:white lady.

(folklore) A female ghost dressed in white, who is associated with local legends of tragedy.

A sour cocktail made with gin or crème de menthe, triple sec or Cointreau, and a citrus juice, sometimes with an egg white.


Argos

(Greek mythology) The dog of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.

(Greek mythology) Alternative form of Argus (“many-eyed servant of Hera”)

A town in Indiana; named for the city in Greece.

A river in Murcia, Spain; flowing from Caravaca de la Cruz into the Segura at Calasparra.


wood-elf

It was quite clear now, even if proof had not been needed before, that poor George was not clever, or he would never have picked out such a wife. It was no answer to this argument that Magdalen had the free beauty of a wood-elf, or that the general, her father, had brought a heavy store of Indian rupees back with him to his native town. George Fossebraye was too dull to be supposed to be susceptible to beauty or to be influenced by prudent motives.

1893 February, Robert Fortune, “Earlscourt : A Novel of Provincial Life”, in Blackwood's Magazine, volume DCCCCXXVIII, number CLIII, page 191:

The word alf (alfr/elf) is used for many sorts of wight: not only the Light Alfs, Dark Alfs (mound-elves), and Swart Alfs that Grimm separates out of German folklore and the Norse sources, but also different sorts of land wights (wood-elves, field elves, water-elves, and sea-elves).

1993, Our Troth, the Ring of Troth and other true folk, →ISBN, page 227:

To wood-elf and field-elf I pour out this greeting, And bid you bless this holy rite.

1999, Thunder, issue 11, Ceremony for the Handfasting of Dragon Earthson and Thorskegga Thorn (Math Jones)

Late in the night when the midnight sun cast a long shadow from the caves peak over his camp, Hother crept into the wood-elf's cave, overpowered him and bound him securely.

2001, Thunder, issue 18, The Courting of Nanna (Thorskegga Thorn)

(fantasy) An elf which inhabits woodland, usually depicted as a subrace of elf.


rivalship

From rival + ship (“a fictional romantic relationship between two characters”).

compound

it took me longer to ship drarry bc when i first read HP i was young and pure and didnt care about ships but now im rivalship trash so

2015 October 16, kat (@saItkath), Twitter:

where are my femslash rivalships/hateships i want girls who wanna DUEL before they smooch

2017 December 20, in the netherdeep (@NatRoze), Twitter:

I dont like kylo ren bc hes a bitch. Also r*ylo sucks because fuck rivalships she deserves better. Dont @ me

2019 March 6, may (@myosotiskills), Twitter:

(fandom slang) A ship involving characters with an adversarial relationship.


catgirl

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-catgirl.wav

But publishers cannot survive on cute catgirls alone.

2009, Jason S. Yadao, The Rough Guide to Manga, page 222:

Back in 1997, the Japanese magazines made a big deal out of the fact that the catgirl detective anime Hyper Police was on at one in the morning[…]

2010, Jonathan Clements, Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade:

"Why do we need to leave the mall first?" "Even if I can undo this myself, I don't know how to do it or how it works! I might become more cat-like first, or turn you into a cat, or unleash a shockwave of catness that turns everyone in the mall into cat girls!"

2016 October 7, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive - EGS:NP (webcomic), Comic for Friday, Oct 7, 2016:

(Japanese fiction) A female fictional character who has a cat's ears, tail, or other feline characteristics on an otherwise humanoid body.

貓人 /猫人

female character with feline characteristics


ELF

Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
w:Elvish Linguistic Fellowship

Initialism of Elvish Linguistic Fellowship (an organization that studies the invented languages of J. R. R. Tolkien)


treant

From tree + ent, with modification of the spelling to avoid the unusual forms treent or treeent.

Treants are strangely related to humans and trees, combining features of both species. ...an individual treant can cause only one or two normal trees to move and attack as stipulated.

1977, Gary Gygax, Monster Manual, page 96:

(fantasy roleplaying games) A fictional anthropomorphic organism having many characteristics of a tree.


fictography

(literature) A fictionalized biography; a biography written about a fictional character. For example, Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathan Swift but presented as being written by Lemuel Gulliver, the novel's main character.


Titanian

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Titan (the Saturnian moon) or of Titania


Callistoan

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Callisto


scale mail

en-noun

scale mail (countable and uncountable, plural scale mails)

(academically obsolete, now fiction, fantasy) Scale armor.


Europan

(science fiction, demonym) An inhabitant of the astronomical body Europa (either the moon of Jupiter or the minor planet of the Main Asteroid Belt).


shonen

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shonen.wav

From the Japanese 少年 (shōnen, “few years”).

(anime, manga) A style of Japanese animation and comics aimed at a younger male audience.


shonen

en-adj

shonen (comparative more shonen, superlative most shonen)

more shonen (comparative)
most shonen (superlative)

(anime, manga) Being in the style of shonen comics or animation.


shōnen

shōnen (comparative more shōnen, superlative most shōnen)

more shōnen (comparative)
most shōnen (superlative)


Godzilla

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Godzilla.wav

From Japanese ゴジラ (Gojira), blend created for the movie from the words ゴリラ (gorira, “gorilla”) and 鯨 (kujira, “whale”).
The phonetic shift from Goji- to Godzi- was probably to imply relation to the word God.

What other television show would feature a gorgeously designed sequence where a horrifically mutated Pierre and Marie Curie, their bodies swollen to Godzilla-like proportions from prolonged exposure to the radiation that would eventually kill them, destroy an Asian city with their bare hands like vengeance-crazed monster-Gods?

2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club:

A fictional Japanese monster (kaiju) from a series of science-fiction films.


duppy

Jamaica, circa 18th century. From Bube dupe (“ghost”) (compare Akan adɔpe).

(Jamaica, games) A drawn game of noughts and crosses (in Jamaica tii-taa-tuo).


vegetable lamb

A shortened version of vegetable lamb of Tartary.

(mythology) A legendary plant believed to grow sheep from its branches.


magic carpet

Have you ever been, have you ever been, to Electric Ladyland? / The magic carpet waits for you, so don't you be late

1968, Jimi Hendrix (lyrics and music), “Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)”, in Electric Ladyland, performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience:

(fiction) A carpet capable either of magical flight, or instantaneous transport from one place to another, used as a means of travel.

The relaunch of the railway comes alongside other major improvement works including new 'magic carpet' conveyor belts for skiers using the beginner slopes.

2023 April 5, “News in pictures: New livery adorns Cairngorm funicular”, in RAIL, number 980, page 28:

(skiing) A conveyor belt to transport skiers/snowboarders.


contraterrene

/ˌkɒntɹətəˈɹiːn/

This means just one thing: the instant contraterrene matter struck ordinary matter, a terrific explosion would occur!

1952, Science Digest, volume 31, page 67:

Then I started jacking up the voltage, and modified the thing with a double-polarity field somewhat similar to the molecular motion field except that it works on a sub-nucleonic level. As a result, about half of the lead fed into the chamber became contraterrene lead! The atoms just turned themselves inside out, so to speak, giving us an atom with positrons circling a negatively charged nucleus.

1957, John W. Campbell, Islands of Space:

(obsolete in physics, science fiction) Made of or pertaining to antimatter.


Tritonian

(Greek mythology) Of or pertaining to the classical Greek god Triton.


mecha

From Japanese メカ (meka), from an abbreviation of the English mechanical.

Having deprived her of both her mecha and her lover, Masato looks set for a nasty end, but Miku arrives to save him.

1997, Helen McCarthy, The anime movie guide:

A transformation occurs when a mecha character, vehicle, or weapon unfolds and reassembles itself in a totally new form.

2002, Christopher Hart, Anime mania: how to draw characters for Japanese animation:

Porco Rosso evinces a deep fascination with mechanical objects of all sorts but it is by no means a mecha movie...

2006, Dani Cavallaro, The animé art of Hayao Miyazaki:

Each week the good guys fight the bad guys and vanquish them in a mecha battle, only to have the bad guys reappear intact the following week.

2007, Frenchy Lunning, Mechademia 2: Networks of Desire:

[…] to be a “lifter”—to pilot a mecha that can also transform into an air board […]

2007, Robin E. Brenner, Understanding manga and anime, page 170:

In this section, I show you mechas that are large enough to be piloted by humans from the inside. Although most of them are designed for combat, some function as transportation or construction mechas.

2011, Kensuke Okabayashi, Manga For Dummies, page 275:

(anime, manga) A large armoured robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside.


haa

(pornographic manga) The sound of heavy breathing when sexually aroused.


xenolinguistics

(linguistics, science fiction) Study of a language originating from alien species.


PLA

(historical, trading) NYSE stock-ticker symbol for Playboy Enterprises, Inc., now PLBY.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus
w:Pokémon Legends: Arceus

(fandom slang, video games) Initialism of Pokémon Legends: Arceus.


tengu

(Japanese mythology, Shinto, mythology) A mythical Japanese creature, typically birdlike and having a long nose.


love interest

Many people are involved in relationships in which they do not know how their love interest feels about them. […] They may also fear knowing the truth, which may be that their love interest isn't truly interested enough in them to make a commitment to the relationship.

2012, Barbara R. Cohl, “What Unhappy Couples Can Teach Us”, in Success for Modern Day Relationships: Working with Dating, Engaged, and Married Couples, Lanham, Md., Plymouth, Devon: Jason Aronson, →ISBN, page 82:

Items from the "Love Styles" scale (Grote & Frieze, 1994) and the Hatfield and Rapson "Passionate Love" scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) were used to assess the type of love felt for the other person. One love style measured was eros, or passionate love (Lee, 1976). […] Items were: "I was physically attracted to my love interest"; "I felt we had the right physical chemistry between us"; "Just seeing my love interest excited me"; "I felt that I knew and really understood my love interest"; […]

2015, H. Colleen Sinclair, Irene Hanson Frieze, “Initial Courtship Behavior and Stalking: How Should We Draw the Line?”, in Roland D. Maiuro, editor, Perspectives on Stalking: Victims, Perpetrators, and Cyberstalking, New York, N.Y.: Springer Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 61:

Naturally, Fallout also plays to [Tom] Cruise’s waning appeal as a romantic leading man, supplying him with no less than three potential love interests.

2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2018-07-31:

(film, literature) One who is of interest as a (potential) partner in love.

vlam

one of interest as a (potential) partner in love

They part mutually enchanted; he with her bouquet; she with his honeyed words hoarded in the cells of her excited soul. Their acquaintance is speedily matured, till it becomes evident to all spectators that a love interest has fairly begun.

1858 October, Grace Thalmon, “Choice of a Husband”, in D[avis] W[asgatt] Clark, editor, The Ladies’ Repository: A Monthly Periodical, Devoted to Literature and Religion, volume XVIII, number 37, Cincinnati, Oh.: L. Swormstedt and A. Poe [et al.], →OCLC, page 598, column 2:

Some of the greatest and most widely-appreciated literary achievements have been wholly or mainly independent of love-interest or love-inspiration. Religious fervour, zeal for liberty, admiration of abstract virtue, philanthropy, desire to search the heart of man, and contemplation of the beauties and splendours of the outward world,—all these prove to be motives as capable of firing and exalting the imagination as the more directly personal stimulus of love.

1875 July, “the London Hermit” [pseudonym], “Essays and Sketches. On Love in Fiction.”, in Dublin University Magazine. A Literary and Political Journal, volume LXXXVI, number DXI, Dublin: George Herbert, […], London: Hurst & Blackett, Melbourne, Vic.: George Robertson, →OCLC, page 113, column 1:

"The Hand of Peril" is subtitled by its author, Mr. Arthur Stringer, "a novel of adventure," whereas I should label it a six-cylinder detective story. […] Incidentally, the ligament that holds these six morsels together is, of course, a "love-interest" between the detective and the chief criminal's putative daughter and assistant.

1915 September, Henry Brinsley, “Latest News from the Literary Trenches”, in Frank Crowninshield, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 5, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 94, column 1:

The love interest is supplied by the Colonel's grandson and the daughter of the inventor of a horseless wagon.

1926 December, [Arthur Hornblow, Sr.], “Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play”, in F. E. Allardt, editor, Theatre Magazine: For the Lovers of the Stage and the Screen, volume XLIV, number 309, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Magazine Company, →OCLC, page 72, column 2:

(film, literature) A romantic plot or subplot in a film or book.


South Park

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-South Park.wav

A high intermontane grassland basin in Park County, in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado.

(fiction) A small fictional snow-capped mountainous Colorado town, the setting of the adult animated sitcom South Park.


galge

Borrowed from Japanese ギャルゲー (gyarugē), a shortening of ギャルゲーム (gyaru gēmu), a wasei-eigo derived from English gal + game.

(video games) A video game centered around interactions with attractive anime-style girls.


unbitrium

systematic element name
systematic element name

The systematic element name for the (as yet undiscovered) chemical element with atomic number 123 (symbol Ubt).


AH

(fandom slang) Initialism of all human: applied to fan fiction stories in which supernatural characters are reimagined as normal human beings.


needler

From Middle English nedlere, equivalent to needle + -er.

(chiefly science fiction) A gun that fires needles or darts.


ray-gun

(science fiction, weaponry) Alternative spelling of ray gun


transmat

Attested since the 1950s, from transmit or transfer and matter; perhaps popularized by the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

One of these days.., they'll invent a Transmat that'll set you down anywhere.

1959 June 13, Laurence Janifer, “Obey that Impulse!”, in Future Science Fiction, number 43, page 40:

Three lines of workers began to vanish into the transmats, heading for their homes in the android compounds of five continents, […]

1970 June 13, Robert Silverberg, “The Tower of Glass”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 30, number 3, page 83:

TIME LORD: Ah. Welcome, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What's going on? Don't you realize how dangerous it is to intercept a transmat beam?
TIME LORD: Oh, come, Doctor, not with our techniques. We Time Lords transcended such simple mechanical devices when the universe was less than half its present size.

1975, Terry Nation, Genesis of the Daleks (Doctor Who, season 12, serial 4), opening dialogue

You are in a TRANS-MAT unit. You see a faulty control panel with a button on it.

1983, The Long Way Home (video game published with 16/48 Magazine)

LYNDA: Oh, that's the transmat. Scrambles your head — I was sick for days.

2005, Russell T Davies, Bad Wolf (Doctor Who series 1, episode 12)

(British, science fiction) A teleporter; a fictional device that transfers/transmits matter from one location to another without the object traversing the intervening distance as itself.


transmat

en-verb

transmat (third-person singular simple present transmats, present participle transmatting, simple past and past participle transmatted)

transmats (present singular third-person)
transmatting (participle present)
transmatted (participle past)
transmatted (past)

It wasn't far enough away to think about transmatting and besides, that was no longer a viable option, what with vandals having wrecked some of the booths in the area.

1991, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Carmen Carter, Robert Greenberger, Doomsday World (Star Trek: The Next Generation; 12), Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 171:

'No, you're not,' Blandish put in smoothly 'You're transmatting down with me. I'll head the away team and I'll consent to let you advise.'

1999, Paul Magrs, Jeremy Hoad, The Blue Angel (Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures; 27), BBC Worldwide, →ISBN, page 36:

Donna twisted her neck around to try to find the Doctor, but she realised that she'd been transmatted alone.

2010, Mark Michalowski, Shining Darkness (Doctor Who: New Series Adventures; 27), BBC Worldwide, →ISBN, page 17:

(British, science fiction, transitive, intransitive) To teleport; to (cause to) travel via transmat device.


Disneyfy

Disneyfy (third-person singular simple present Disneyfies, present participle Disneyfying, simple past and past participle Disneyfied)

Disneyfies (present singular third-person)
Disneyfying (participle present)
Disneyfied (participle past)
Disneyfied (past)

From Disney + -fy, with reference to the Disney theme parks.

Jazz was not always an accepted music, and, of course, today we have the problem of remaining faithful to the cultural roots of jazz, not just candifying, Disneyfying the music.

1994, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Subcommittee on Public Lands, National Parks, and Forests, Workshop and hearing on New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park:

The overall feel on today is prehistoric. There is a mood of dilophosauri and raptors lurking hungrily in the oak copses—of the savagery that lurks to recapture even the most Disneyfied of environments in the absence of vigilance.

1996, Douglas Coupland, “Postcard from Palo Alto”, in Polaroids from the Dead, New York, N.Y.: ReganBooks, →ISBN, part 2 (Portraits of People and Places), page 117:

Every summer, the most popular European destinations get stuffed to the gills with tourists, who outnumber locals by many multiples, turning hot spots into sweaty, selfie-stick-clogged, “Disneyfied” towns.

2018 August 29, Farhad Manjoo, “‘Overtourism’ Worries Europe. How Much Did Technology Help Get Us There?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-08-29:

Frieze has become a corporate snooze. Have the galleries been actively encouraged by its big-business owners to Disneyfy themselves?

2023 October 11, Jonathan Jones, “Frieze London art fair review – a graveyard of creativity for tasteless one percenters”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-10-11:

(transitive, usually derogatory) To make something (especially a location) more acceptable or marketable by removing potentially distasteful, controversial or boring elements, particularly at the cost of its history and culture.


MTFBWY

may the Force be with you
may the Force be with you#English

(text messaging) Initialism of may the Force be with you.


valley girl

From Valley, short for San Fernando Valley. Popularized by the Frank/Moon Zappa song Valley Girl (1982).

She's a valley girl / In a clothing store / Okay, fine / Fer sure

1982, Frank Zappa, Moon Zappa (lyrics and music), “Valley Girl”, in Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch:

They were referring, of course, to that vast expanse of tract homes and backyard barbecues that is the San Fernando Valley. The valley, with its valley girls and mini-malls, never shared Los Angeles's cultural cachet.

2002 April 20, Joseph Kahn, “San Fernando Valley Looks To a Life After Los Angeles”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

2010, John C. Wells, accents map
Note the intrusion into British demotic (“me and Cheryl were having”) of the valley-girl quotative be, like.

(US, slang) A girl or young woman from the San Fernando Valley, especially when stereotyped as superficial and material.


Sherlock

Supposedly from an Old English scir-locc (“bright-lock”).
One of a group of surnames originally denoting hair colour, parallel to Blacklock, Harlock (Old English har (“grey”)), Silverlock.
In the computing verb sense, refers to the software Sherlock, which in 2002 came to replicate some of the features of an earlier complementary program called Watson.

— Where that arrow on the map says 'You are here', that must be where we are.

— Yeah, well done Sherlock.

(humorous) A detective (from Sherlock Holmes), especially used sarcastically to address somebody who has stated the obvious.


Tom Thumb

→ French: Tom Pouce

→ Dutch: tompoes
→ English: tompouce

→ Limburgish: tompoeske

A fairy-tale character who is the size of a person's thumb; the protagonist and hero of the fairy tale The History of Tom Thumb.


Podunk

From an Eastern Algonquian, likely Loup A, word or words. Similar names were applied to various small and generally unknown places. By the late 19th century the word came to mean an obscure small town, a use possibly popularized by Mark Twain (see quotation). Carlton and Reed survey similar place names and note a transformation from Potaecke to Potunke to Podunk. Carlton suggests a derivation from the adjective petukque ("round"). Tooker compares Ojibwe petobeg (“bog”) (as Chippewa) and Abenaki poteba (“to sink in the mire”) and divides the word into pot- ("to sink") and -unk (locative). Algonquian expert Ives Goddard says "We have no idea what the word means. You'll be able to find guesses in the sources if you look around. Don't believe any of it."

They even know it in Podunk, wherever that may be.

1869, Mark Twain, Mr. Beecher and the Clergy:

Podunk. A term applied to an imaginary place in burlesque writing or speaking.

[1877, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 4th edition, page 791:

Podunk, like Atlantis, has no locus. Sought often, it is unfound and apparently unfindable.

1933 February 2, F. W. Buxton, Boston Herald:

This isn't some Podunk charge in some Podunk court. Charged with four counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice, Bonds, if convicted, could be sentenced to a maximum of 30 years in prison.

2007 November 15, Scott Miller, “This verdict's already in: Bonds won't hit No. 763”, in CBS Sports:

(US) Mythical small town of no importance. [from 19th c.]

Placeholder name § Geographical locations


bat phone

From bat- + phone, after Commissioner Gordon's secure line to the Batphone in the 1960s-era Batman television show.

(informal) A telephone that has a direct connection to an important caller, or is only used for important calls


psychohistory

en-noun

psychohistory (countable and uncountable, plural psychohistories)

/sʌɪkəʊˈhɪstəɹi/

From psycho- + history.
* The science-fictional usage was created by Isaac Asimov in the mid-20th century.

(science fiction) A fictional mathematical statistical science of large population dynamics, where mathematical models can predict general futures, based on activities of quadrillions of individuals. The fictional science first occurs in Asimov's 1950s Foundation series, and has since been picked up by other authors for other works.


edisonade

From Edison + -ade, coined by Canadian author John Clute in 1993, after inventor Thomas Edison.

coin

(science fiction) A genre of science fiction and adventure fiction featuring a brilliant robust inventor, engineer or scientist hero who has an adventure in the wilds of the world, created from the mid-19th century to early 20th century, mostly American.

scientific romance

European science-fiction genre of the same period


robinsonade

Borrowed from German Robinsonade, analyzable in English as Robinson + -ade, named after fictional character Robinson Crusoe, from Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe.

named-after

Much, perhaps most, Minecraft fiction follows the robinsonade template, emphasizing the day-to-day life of a character, including nonhuman characters, striving to survive and thrive in a recognizably Minecraftian world by utilizing its resources.

2020, Michael T. Wilson, “Minecraft Fiction”, in Anne H. Stevens, Molly C. O’Donnell, editors, The Microgenre: A Quick Look at Small Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN:

A genre of adventure fiction where a hero is stranded alone on a desert island and has to survive with their own wits.


alternate history

alternative history
alternative history#English


contactee

He believes the contactees (those who claim to have actual contact with beings from outer space) are actually creating a new theology.

1966 May 11, “Harvard Astronomers Claim UFO's Are Based on Illusion and Religion”, in Harvard Crimson:

The “contactees” or “saucerians” surfaced in 1952 in southern California. They presented themselves as selected by superior beings from other planets for a special assignment—save the world.

2001, David A. Clary, Before and After Roswell, page 63:

(ufology, dated) A person who has been contacted by alien beings from outer space.


space alien

What would be the first question to ask a space alien newly arrived on planet Earth?

1997 July 1, Janet Maslin, “Oh, Aliens: Business As Usual”, in New York Times:

(chiefly US) An extraterrestrial being; a visitor from outer space.


omnilinguality

Within the midst of its linguistic obscurities, Joyce embeds a few readily recognizable words. By this act is he only playing with a "literary thing," or is he predicting that "time, universality, omnilinguality" is the means by which future human histories will be told?

1994, Paul J. Griffiths, On Being Buddha: The Classical Doctrine of Buddhahood, State University of New York Press, →ISBN, pages 116–117:

This type of paradox is fundamental to the Buddhist episteme and informs all aspects of Buddhist discourse. There is the "tension between a buddha’s transcendence and immanence—his location within both nirvāṇa and saṃsāra," John D. Dunne writes, and "Śākyamuni Buddha's involvement in the world as a teacher and his detachment from the world as an awakened being." Buddha has "omnilinguality” even as "Buddha in se does not speak," Paul J. Griffiths writes, and "is not implicated with language. Eckel considers such paradoxes, and specifically the implications of Buddha’s absence, as "points of incongruity that challenge the stability of conceptuality itself" yet lead to insight, knowledge, and "the ability to perceive and respond to the absence."

1999, Takeuchi Yoshinori, Buddhist Spirituality: Later China, Korea, Japan, and The Modern World, The Crossroad Publishing Company, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, →ISBN, page 391:

2011, Martha Banta, Words at Work in Vanity Fair: Language Shifts in Crucial Times, 1914-1930, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 4:

either^([sic]) shapeshifting or omnilinguality^([sic])

2019 February 22, Jetty_Boy , snail-boy, RandomOTP, “What's^([sic]) superpowers do you wish you had?”, in reddit.com:

The ability to speak or understand many languages.


sword and sandal

“Ben-Hur” and “Spartacus” are two famous sword and sandal films.

Of or relating to a genre of books or films relating fantasy-adventure tales involving heroic exploits in ancient or biblical times.


sword-and-sandal

sword and sandal
sword and sandal#English

Alternative spelling of sword and sandal


sword and sorcery

In the typical Sword and Sorcery novel, the setting resembles the misty landscape of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, in that larger-than-life heroes struggle against strange and nightmarish antagonists.

1972, Don Davidson, “Sword and Sorcery Fiction: An Annotated Book List”, in The English Journal, volume 61, number 1, page 44:

(idiomatic) Of or pertaining to a genre of narratives—including short stories, novels, television shows, films, and computer games—which combines wizardry and other fantastical supernatural elements with violent combat using pre-modern weaponry.


sword and sorcery

(idiomatic) A genre of narratives—including short stories, novels, television shows, films, and computer games—which combines wizardry and other fantastical supernatural elements with violent combat using pre-modern weaponry.


Hamiltonian

Of, relating to, or in the literary style of Edmond Hamilton (1904–1977), American science fiction writer.


creature feature

en-noun

creature feature (plural creature features)

"Godzilla" is one of the classic creature features.

(idiomatic, film, humorous) A horror film in which one or more monsters plays a prominent role.


war veteran

A person who has served in the armed forces during a war.


nis

No farm-house goes on well without there is a Nis in it, and well is it for the maids and the men when they are in favour with him.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth:

The people of the Feroes call the Nisses or Brownies Niagruisar, and describe them as little creatures with red caps on their beads, that bring luck to any place where they take up their abode.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 259:

A nix; a hobgoblin, especially one that resides in a farm house.


mithril

Created by J. R. R. Tolkien in his constructed language Sindarin as mithril, from mith (“pale grey”) + a derivative of the Primitive Elvish root *ril- (‘brilliant light, glitter’).

In order to get the iron ore, mithril and leather strap, you must do the following.

1993, David Ladyman, Shay Addams, Quest for Clues: The Manual of Swords, page 124:

Open the double doors to the south and get the mithril plate boots and mithril chain leggings.

1995, Peter Olafson, Thunderscape: The Official Strategy Guide, page 128:

Once the elf brought in the mithril chainmail shirt, the mithril bracers and leg guards he handed the items to Lord Kale, he put them in the magical pouch on his side for later use, in his mind he knew he had to die for his friends in the near future.

2012, Matthew Mackenzie, The History of Valin Sol: the Decay Years: Book 1 Rise of Decay, page 113:

A gold dragon's fire could melt iron and steel in seconds, depending on its quality, but this heat only made mithril malleable. Ordin quickly placed a steel rod into the rough mithril sword blank to increase its mass.

2012, J. Michael Fluck, Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow, page 422:

(fantasy) A fictional silvery metal of great strength and value, primarily in fantasy and role-playing settings.


pyrokinetic

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of pyrokinesis.


caucus race

From caucus (“special party meeting for vote allocation”) + race (“contest between people”).

Mr. Gingrich, who is now the minority whip, announced last week that he had rounded up more than 100 commitments from House Republicans for the caucus race to come after the election next year.

1993 October 16, “Solomon Drops Out of Race To Be G.O.P. House Leader”, in New York Times:

(US, idiomatic) The competitive process in which a political party selects their candidate, especially presidential; a primary election via caucus.

[…] she was backing southern moderate John Spratt in his strong but unsuccessful caucus race for Budget Committee chairman.

1993, M. Barone, G. Ujifusa, R. E. Cohen, “The Almanac of American Politics 1994”, in National Journal, page 176:

(US, idiomatic) A political competition; the game of campaigning and one-upmanship to get votes and be elected.


caucus race

From caucus (“regular party committee meeting of elected MPs”) + race (“contest between people”); a reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapter III "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale", being a nonsensical satire thereof: all participants have to run in circles until an arbitrary end is called and everyone is declared a winner; Alice has to give prizes to them all, and being declared a winner too, the Dodo solemnly takes her thimble and awards it back to her.

With the dominant figure in U.S. politics forced to the sidelines for—perhaps—the rest of the year, the national political situation last week began to take on the unreal air of the Dodo's caucus race.

1955 October 17, "The Dodo's Dance", in Time magazine

The American economic system is beginning to resemble the caucus race in Alice in Wonderland. Is it not something of a contradiction to cut taxes to facilitate the resurgence of buying power that will increase the demand for appliances and, especially, vehicles —and at the same time enforce a reduction in demand for the petroleum fuels that must drive the cars and power the machines that will manufacture the appliances?

1975 February 17, John Rossouw, "To the Editors", in Time magazine

A more free and easy attitude prevailed in selecting research topics than today, when the funding squeeze keeps most academic scientists in a tight caucus race of grant getting and paper production that precludes forays into risky serendipitous pursuits.

1997, Christopher Scholz, chapter 1, in Fieldwork: A Geologist's Memoir of the Kalahari, Princeton University Press, →ISBN:

(originally British, idiomatic) A laborious but arbitrary and futile activity; an activity that amounts to running around in a circle, expending great energy but not accomplishing anything.


space invader

Made popular by the early video game Space Invaders (1978).

Alternative form: space-invader

When I forget to follow the rules with my hands, feet, and mouth, I become a Space Invader! A Space Invader makes it hard for others to work, think and play in their personal space.

2023 April 21 (last accessed), Kayla Weskamp, Space Invaders: A Social Skills Game (K – 5):

When someone enters my bubble, I may feel uncomfortable. They are my space invaders.

2023 April 21 (last accessed), Diana Sylvander, Don't Be A Space Invader!- Social Story:

A person who intrudes on others' personal space, making them emotionally or physically uncomfortable.


POD

POD (countable and uncountable, plural PODs)

(uncountable, publishing) Initialism of print on demand.

proof of delivery
proof of delivery#English

(uncountable, programming) Initialism of plain old data.

point of divergence
point of divergence#English

(alternate history) Initialism of point of divergence.


grandmaster

A master in a field, whose skills or accomplishments exceed those of other masters.


orichalcum

/ɒɹɪˈkælkəm/

Learned borrowing from Latin orichalcum, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ὀρείχαλκος (oreíkhalkos), from dative singular of ὄρος (óros, “mountain”) + χαλκός (khalkós, “copper”).

Many walls were coated with metals – with brass, tin and a red ^([sic]) metal, unknown to us, called orichalcum.

2008, Jonathan Black, A Secret History of the World, Quercus, published 2008, page 162:

A valuable yellow metal known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans; now sometimes interpreted as referring to a natural alloy of gold and copper, and sometimes treated as a mythical substance.


plasma rifle

(science fiction, weaponry) An assault rifle-styled gun that shoots plasma.


belter

(science fiction) A person who mines asteroids for minerals or lives in the vicinity of an asteroid belt.


deuteragonist

From Ancient Greek δευτεραγωνιστής (deuteragōnistḗs, literally “second actor”), originally in Greek drama, from ἀγωνιστής (agōnistḗs, “a combatant, pleader, actor”).
By surface analysis, deuter- (“second”) + agonist (“combatant, participant”).

der

δευτεραγωνιστής

surf

The issue is no longer about the artistic representation of woman going on within the story: rather, the art object, now unrelated to the actual woman (at a literal level, at any rate), becomes her deuteragonist and antagonist, and the opposition thus settled becomes further complicated by reversal, exchanges, shifts in their respective positions.

2001, Donatella Izzo, Portraying the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James, University of Nebraska Press, page 58:

(narratology) A secondary character; specifically, the second most important character (after the protagonist).

The first disposition accords with the attested reality of Nero acting in masks resembling his own features or those of women with whom he was in love (Suet. Nero 21.3), especially Poppaea (Dio 63.9.5), and generates a set of roles for the deuteragonist all of which focus on failed counsel; it also underlines the parallelism between the Seneca-Nero and Nero-Prefect scenes, and reinforces the view that the First and Second Prefect are not identical.

2008, A. J. Boyle, editor, Octavia: Attributed to Seneca, Oxford University Press, page 93:

In the distribution of the other roles between the deuteragonist and the tritagonist, the same criteria must have applied. When two characters had an important part in a tragedy and could not be played by a single protagonist, the second was played by the deuteragonist.[…]The tritagonist, even more than the deuteragonist, had to play several secondary roles.

2018, Jacques Jouanna, translated by Steven Rendall, Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, Princeton University Press, page 201:

(historical, ancient Greek drama) An actor playing a role (potentially all roles) requiring a second actor to be present on the stage, opposite the protagonist.


warp speed

The ship was accelerating to warp speed, when one of the engines failed.

(science fiction) A hypothetical, extremely rapid, speed, resulting from entering a separate dimension, termed hyperspace; much faster than the speed of light.


intersex

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-intersex.wav

From German Intersexe; corresponding to inter- + sex. Doublet of intersect

His confidentiality was broken, and soon the entire staff and residential population were aware that Jim was intersex. […] we faced the fact that most programs were gender segregated and would not be a safe place for Jim to be known as intersex.

2006, Dean Spade, “Compliance Is Gendered: Struggling for Gender Self-Determination in a Hostile Economy”, in Paisley Currah et al., editors, Transgender Rights, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 225:

When I had learned that I was intersex, I brought this issue to my mother.

2010, Sean Saifa Wall, “I am the ‘I’”, in Kate Bornstein, S. Bear Bergman, editors, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Seal Press, →ISBN, page 109:

A survey of 1100 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people by Griffith and Bond University researchers found that the overwhelming majority had been victims of targeted harassment as well as physical and sexual abuse.

Of an individual, having any of a variety of inherent conditions (in a species with distinct sexes) in which one's sex characteristics differ from those of a typical male and female; for example, having sex characteristics relating to both male and female sexes.

(fantasy) A person who can get pregnant and also impregnate someone else.


fanne

Fannes — Pronounced the same as "fans," but used in writing to mean fem fans.

1944, John Bristol Speer, Fancyclopedia, Fannes, page 31:

A little more than a week ago two fen and one fanne left for London as delegates to a big gathering formally billed as the Science Fiction Festival Convention but more intimately described as a fanference. […] Sad to relate, some of the European delegates were probably insurgents rather than true fen […] many of them would probably turn out to be real fen and fenne after all.

1951 May 21, Winthrop Sargeant, “Through the Interstellar Looking Glass”, in Life, volume 30, number 21, →ISSN, page 127:

Dorothy lived in the middle of the great western plains, far away from any other fans. She was a very lonely little fanne, who could not afford to go to the annual World Conventions, and had been only to one Oklacon.

1959, Terry Carr, Ron Ellik (as Carl Brandon), “The Cyclone”, in The BNF of Iz, archived from the original on 2013-07-21:

(dated, sometimes derogatory, fandom slang) A female science fiction fan.


corrupter

Can love, which always seeks the good of its object, attempt to betray a woman into a bargain where she is so greatly to be the loser? If such corrupter, therefore, should have the impudence to pretend a real affection for her, ought not the woman to regard him […] as the worst of all enemies […] ?

1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

Since the 1980s, video games have widely been lambasted as a medium that is at best a waste of time and at worst a training ground for violence and aggression. Despite popularized media depictions of video games as corrupters of youth, to date, no study has definitively demonstrated any such link […]

2018, Kristin M.S. Bezio, Kimberly Yost, Leadership, Popular Culture and Social Change, page 157:


staple character

en-noun

staple character (plural staple characters)

The mad scientist was a staple character in many horror films.

(writing, theater, film) A stock character, especially one that is overused.


senpai

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-senpai.wav

Borrowed from Japanese 先(せん)輩(ぱい) (senpai). Doublet of sunbae.

(anime and manga, fandom slang) An upperclassman or elder student, in the context of Japan.


Svartálfar

(Norse mythology) a race of black or dark elves that populate Svartálfaheimr, one of the nine realms


ghost story

There are the books full of Underground ghost stories. An invisible runner pounds along the platforms at Elephant & Castle; children scream in the basement of what used to be the surface building of Hyde Park Corner, [...]

2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 261:

A story about ghosts or the supernatural, often meant to be frightening.


songfic

In addition to longer switches, the corpus also included songfic based on songs that are originally not in English.

2017, Valeria Franceschi, Exploring Plurilingualism in Fan Fiction: ELF Users as Creative Writers, page 173:

Although the songfic genre was by no means invented by Buffy fandom it is more common there because of the importance of popular songs to Buffy.

2017, Janet K. Halfyard, Music, Sound, and Silence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, page 129:

[…] Jenkins describes members of specific fan communities mailing each other VHS tapes containing amateur recreations of canonical scenes, or edited footage with a new soundtrack laid over it (the filmic counterpart to songfic).

2021, Shawn Edrei, The New Fiction Technologies: Interactivity, Agency and Digital Narratology, pages 53–54:

(uncountable, fandom slang) Such fan fiction collectively.


Tin Man

The Tin Woodman, a metallic character in the fictional Land of Oz who travels with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion to the Emerald City in search of a heart.


ufological

en-adj

ufological (comparative more ufological, superlative most ufological)

more ufological (comparative)
most ufological (superlative)


tragic hero

(drama) A hero who suffers from a tragic flaw that eventually causes his downfall.


gold piece

(fantasy roleplaying games) A common unit of currency in many fantasy role-playing games.


ghost ship

When Hayes turned to Jephson's contribution, he found that it commenced with a description of the famous ghost ship, the Marie Celeste, being towed into Gibraltar harbor.

2014, Valerie Martin, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

(nautical) An abandoned ship, or (science fiction, by extension) spaceship, that is haunted and possibly adrift.

vaixell fantasma

abandoned, possibly adrift ship that is haunted


shazaam

and before you can say "Shazaam!" he is translated into Sgt. Moffatt of the Laguna Hills security force.

1968, Michael T. Malloy, The Art of Retirement, page 74:

Suddenly, you find yourself worrying about the strength of the dollar versus the euro and — shazaam — you switch from parasympathetic to sympathetic far faster than you wanted.

2004, Robert M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, page 125:


fandub

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The fandub Evangelion: ReDeath is shown every year at Fanime.

(US, anime) An anime title that has been dubbed by fans.


USO

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS IF I CAN’T REGALE THEM WITH TALES OF WHOREPUNCHING AND SKULLFUCKING? THREE WORDS: INDIETITS USO SHOW

2007, Jeph Jacques, Indietits: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS:


clairaudience

en-noun

clairaudience (countable and uncountable, plural clairaudiences)

Modelled on clairvoyance; from French clair (“clear”) + French audience (“hearing”).

(parapsychology) The power to perceive auditory stimuli beyond the realm of normal hearing.


sub-light

"We are about to test sub-light engine disengage."

2017, A.K. Brown, Humans on the Menu (Champagne Universe Series: Book 2), page 36:

(science fiction) At less than the speed of light.


realspace

(science fiction) Normal, three-dimensional space; as opposed to hyperspace


Uncle Scrooge

From a Disney character, named in reference to Charles Dickens' fictional miser Ebenezer Scrooge.

It is an anomaly of our times that an Uncle Sam spending at a rate of some $128 billion yearly should become an Uncle Scrooge in the treatment of government workers!

1967, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, “Federal Pay Legislation: Hearings, Ninetieth Congress, first session”, in parliamentary debates, U.S. Congress, page 282:


weretiger

(fiction, mythological) A creature of Southeast Asian myth; a shapeshifter who can assume the shape of a tiger.


wererat

The only other animal he'd seen hadn't been an animal at all, but a wererat who had given him a curious look before darting away into an alley.

2006, Christine Warren, Wolf at the Door: A Novel of The Others, page 205:

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can assume the shape of a rat.


Pepe

The character's creator, Matt Furie, chose the name Pepe because it reminded him of the term pee-pee, a resemblance he found funny.

Alternate iterations of Pepe, including sad, smug and angry Pepes, followed. Pepe memes are ubiquitous across 4chan, Reddit, Imgur, Tumblr, and other social media and image-sharing sites.

2016 October 11, Jessica Roy, “How ’Pepe the Frog’ went from harmless to hate symbol”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-03-03:

One thread filled up with hundreds of Pepes to help meme Florida over to Trump, as if their energy could help Florida stay red.

2016 November 9, Abby Ohlheiser, “’We actually elected a meme as president’: How 4chan celebrated Trump’s victory”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-01-16:

(Internet slang, 4chan) An image or depiction of the Pepe the Frog character.


cyberize

en-verb

cyberize (third-person singular simple present cyberizes, present participle cyberizing, simple past and past participle cyberized)

cyberizes (present singular third-person)
cyberizing (participle present)
cyberized (participle past)
cyberized (past)

At this Nightshade mutters under his breath and begins to metamorphose. Slowly more metal appears on him, and his looks change drastically from a pure human to a fully cyberized hunk of man and machine.

1993 August 25, Robert Johan Enters, “Re: [ADMIN] Re: Newcomer to the Theatre...”, in alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo (Usenet):

I don't see ItX [=Iteration X] forcefully cyberizing anyone against their will. Not only is it wildly unethical, Devices are far too valuble ^([sic]) to waste on people who will try to resist the Union.

2000 March 21, Julian Mensch, “Re: Iteration X Conventionpage for a noble Union [*LONG*]”, in alt.games.whitewolf (Usenet):

But he did report to Starfleet HQ his encounter with a race of cyberized humanoids who are out to assimilate everyone, and T'Pol's estimate that said race would likely return during the 24th century.

2009 May 8, "Tim Bruening" (username), "Re: Archer Vs Borg", on alt.tv.star-trek.enterprise and alt.humor.puns, Usenet

(science fiction, rare) To make into a cyborg; to fit with a cybernetic implant or prosthesis.


OAV

Initialism of original animation video, a direct-to-video Japanese anime.


OVA

Original video animation
original video animation#English

Original video animation, a direct-to-video anime.


alakazam

Unknown, with various theories ranging from spontaneous usage as a nonsense chant, to less likely sources from Arabic, Latin, and Hindi.
Some etymologists suggest an origin from Arabic القَسَم (al-qasam, “the oath”).

A magic word used in conjuring; presto, shazaam.


Mary Sue

From the name of an intentionally over-the-top character in the 1973 Star Trek parody fan fiction A Trekkie's Tale by Paula Smith.

Bella may be a Mary Sue, but if we don't identify with her, and even if we do, there's no other interpretive place for us in the universe.

2010 August 3, Ta-Nehisi Coates, “A Whole New World”, in The Atlantic:

She was a mashup of ideals that made her feel very fake; a Mary Sue who was popular, pretty, athletic, artistic, all the while loved by everyone who met her.

2015 January 20, Sian Cain, “Why a non-white Nancy Drew could be amazing”, in The Guardian:

So here's a radical suggestion: instead of being concerned about whether her Mary Sue flawlessness is a problem, why not, just this once, enjoy it for what it is?

2015 December 19, Tasha Robinson, “With Star Wars' Rey, we've reached Peak Strong Female Character”, in The Verge:

There is one, and only one, previously unheard of flaw that keeps Nanase from being the merriest of Mary Sues. That flaw is...

2022 August 18, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive - EGS:NP (webcomic), Comic for Thursday, Aug 18, 2022:

(fandom slang, usually derogatory) A fictional character, usually female, whose implausible talents and likeability weaken the story.


plot device

An element introduced into a story, film, etc. to advance its plot.


fachan

A fachan is a large, fierce monstrosity that is as dangerous as it is strange. A fachan has one eye in the middle of its forehead, a single arm in the middle of its chest and one leg supporting it from underneath. The fachan's[…]

(Can we date this quote?), RuneQuest Monsters, Mongoose Publishing, →ISBN, page 63:

"I can handle a fachan on my own,” Sir Celes said. “Don't worry, my regiment is...” “My father...” It felt so cold all of a sudden. Like a cloud had covered the sun. A fachan. A horrible, one-eyed giant. A terrifying monster that had taken something[…]

2020 April 27, Nao Wakasa, The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP! Volume 1, J-Novel Club, →ISBN:

(folklore and now also fantasy) A giant in Irish and Scottish folklore, which has one central leg, one hand protruding from its chest, and one eye.