Sue, Grabbit and Runne

A jocular play on the phrase sue, grab it and run, suggesting a greedy law firm to which Private Eye magazine would usually attribute frivolous libel cases.

1838, Joshington Square'
Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runn were after Mr Crink, our hero.

I cannot disclose his name for fear of letters from Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Run.

[…] the finger sunk into the cheek like that of some posing philosopher and the general effect being, if I may say so without incurring the wrath of Sue Grabbit and Runne, one of effeminacy.

Needless to say such improbable calumnies will not pass unnoticed by Messrs Sue, Grabbitt and Runne, who have been instructed to use the limits of the law to bring to heel the rumour-mongers and muck-rakers.

A rather pathetic pseudo-apology you might think; as Milne had no evidence for his damaging accusation, he was lucky Douglas-Home did not set Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne on him.

I am sure he will agree, after some of his comments, that if we pursue this idea too far, he and I, and indeed your Lordships, might well become entangled with that well-known firm of libel lawyers, Messrs. Sue, Grabitt, and Run, since I shall report swiftly the thoughts of my noble friend to my right honourable friend.

1985 February 27, Lord Lyell, “Government Subsidisation: De Lorean Enterprise”, in parliamentary debates (House of Lords (UK)), page 1000:

Now Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne have also written to the editor in a threatening manner to say that their new client His Holiness Shri Chandra Swamiji Maharaj did not, as alleged, act as a broker to any transaction involving Mark Thatcher

It would not be hard to prove as there are published figures for the UK where “Sue, Grabit and Run” has handled many of the placements.

1999 June 22, Dick Roche, “Estimates for Public Services, 1999 - Vote 32 - Public Enterprise (Revised)”, in parliamentary debates (Houses of the Oireachtas (Ireland)):

With Wright anxious to reclaim his Everton place - presently occupied by the rock-solid Nigel Martyn - I suggest he takes counsel from Sue, Grabitt and Run, company motto: Safe Hands Always.

2003 November 9, Len Capeling, “Everton expects; Stars need to deliver”, in Liverpool Daily Post:

We now hear today that we will be cracking down on these solicitors, so that fewer and fewer people — perhaps no people — will end up at the tender mercies of Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

2007, Great Britain. Parliament House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts, Legal Services Commission: Legal Aid and Mediation for People Involved in Family Breakdown, Fifty-first Report of Session 2006-07, The Stationery Office →ISBN, page 12

There are players picking up a hundred grand a week who are like pickpockets, stealing money from the fans. I'm not going to name names 'cos I don't want to make libel lawyers Sue, Grabbitt and Run any richer.

2009, Jimmy Greaves, Ian St John, Saint And Greavsie's Funny Old Games, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

Let's hope that now Kate Middleton has got her first taste of cash for "invasion of her privacy" (following an award of £5,000 in damages for a pap snap of her on a Christmas family holiday) she won't be encouraged by Messrs Sue, Grabitt and Runne to censure every single detail that's reported about her.

The wonderful thing about accredited demons is that you can say virtually anything about them and it is unlikely you will hear from Sue, Grabbit and Run.

2010, John Pilger, Distant Voices, Random House, →ISBN, page 224:

Hopefully, a representative of Sue, Grabit and Run, will not be standing by poised to take legal action should anyone scratch themselves.

2010 March 6, Hilarie Stelfox, “Hilarie: Learning to deal with life’s rough and tumble”, in Huddersfield Daily Examiner:

If I sent Messrs Sue, Grabbitt and Runne this well written, cogently argued, literate letter then they would say that I was capable of getting the kind of job I'd had and of earning the same good salary.

2013, Annie Francis-Clark, The Day My Life Changed, Autharium, →ISBN:

Which Ballard should J.G. Ballard sue J.G Ballard for, on grounds of malicious libel? Answers please to Sue, Grabit and Run.

2013, John Sutherland, Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., →ISBN:

(UK, humorous) A generic name for a law firm, especially one specializing in libel cases.


rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock

rock paper scissors
rock paper scissors#English

(neologism) An extension of the children's game of rock paper scissors, with two additional handshapes: lizard and Spock.


Fredonia

A place in the United States:
A town in Arizona.

A place in the United States:
A ghost town in California.

A place in the United States:
A city and town in Iowa.

A city, the county seat of Wilson County, Kansas.

A place in the United States:
A city and town in Kentucky.

A place in the United States:
A village and city in New York.

A place in the United States:
A city and village in North Dakota.

A place in the United States:
A borough of Pennsylvania.

A place in the United States:
A village and town in Wisconsin.


RBY

Pokémon Red, Blue
w:Pokémon Red and Blue

(fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow.


RGBY

Pokémon Red, Green, Blue
w:Pokémon Red and Blue

(fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon Red, Green, Blue and Yellow.


GSC

Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal
w:Pokémon Gold and Silver

(fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal.


FRLG

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen
w:Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen

(fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.


HGSS

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver
w:Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver

(video games, fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver.


ORAS

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
w:Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

(fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.


Pokémon Black 2 and White 2
w:Pokémon Black 2 and White 2

(fandom slang) Initialism of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2.


shota

en-noun

shota (usually uncountable, plural shotas)

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

From Japanese ショタ (shota) or a clipping of shotacon.

(uncountable, anime) Hentai anime or manga, or other Japanese-inspired erotic art featuring young, usually prepubescent boys.

(countable, anime) A fictional young boy character, especially one featured in such material. Typically drawn with exaggerated or stylised cute features.


Prester John

(mediaeval folklore) A legendary Christian king of a distant Eastern or African kingdom.


BSG

Battlestar Galactica
w:Battlestar Galactica

(science fiction) Initialism of Battlestar Galactica, an American science fiction media franchise.


bottle episode

/ˈbɒtəl ˈɛpɪsəʊd/

Said to be from the term “ship-in-a-bottle episode”, the nickname given by the cast and crew of the television series Star Trek (originally broadcast 1966–1969) to an episode set entirely on board the starship USS Enterprise.

That's pretty much what a "bottle" episode is; one that uses minimal sets, guest stars, effects, etc, and/or uses lots of clips from past episodes, in order to make a much cheaper episode.

1996 February 12, Janet A. Dornhoff, “What are they filming now?”, in alt.tv.forever-knight (Usenet), message-ID <4fno37$t28@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>:

One of Wright's great strengths as a screenwriter and producer is his ability to design bottle episodes—shows filmed with the goal of saving money—and turn them into riveting, compelling dramas where the viewer forgets that they are watching a bottle show.

1998, Cinefantastique, volume 30, Oak Park, Ill.: Frederick S. Clarke, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82:

Even though they are moving, for large stretches 'Spiral' is a bottle episode.

2004, Roz Kaveney, “Writing the Vampire Slayer: Interviews with Jane Espenson and Steven S. DeKnight”, in Roz Kaveney, editor, Reading the Vampire Slayer: The New, Updated, Unofficial Guide to Buffy and Angel, 2nd revised and expanded edition, New York, N.Y.: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, I.B. Tauris, →ISBN, page 125:

By the 2000s, the airwaves seemed full of shows not just making reference to other pop culture "images," but wholly based on pop culture. [...] Community regularly turned episodes into extended homages to M*A*S*H, Doctor Who, and Christmas Claymation specials. In "Cooperative Calligraphy," the show presents a "bottle episode," during which Abed repeatedly reminds everyone they are in a "bottle episode," pointing out each characteristic of such episodes as it occurs.

2018, M. King Adkins, “‘These are Their Stories’: Postmodern Spaces”, in Television Storyworlds as Virtual Space, Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 122:

(originally US, television) An episode of a television series designed to be inexpensive and restricted in its use of sets, effects, cast members, etc.


holochess

(science fiction) The game of chess played with holograms rather than physical pieces.


chindi

According to Navajo beliefs, a harmful ghost that leaves a person's body when they die and may remain around their possessions.


Tardis-like

en-adj

Tardis-like (comparative more Tardis-like, superlative most Tardis-like)

more Tardis-like (comparative)
most Tardis-like (superlative)

There was a row of blue Tardis-like Portaloos out behind the strip of trestle bars.

2007, Jonathan Trigell, Cham, Corsair, published 2012, →ISBN:

Cassie sighed as she shoved everything back into the Tardis-like bag.

2014, Louisa George, Her Client from Hell, Harlequin, published 2014, →ISBN:

At the Tardis-like Kanalmuséet […] you can be initiated into the history and mystery of the canal, designed by engineer Nils Ericson and inaugurated in 1868; or hop on a vessel yourself.

2015, Becky Ohlsen, Anna Kaminski, & Josephine Quintero, Lonely Planet Sweden, Lonely Planet, published 2015, →ISBN:

Resembling the TARDIS in character or manner, as in appearing like a British police box, being unexpectedly capacious, or providing an immersive view of history.


werewolfess

I'm just an insignificant bard, prey to an evil werewolfess, who has been robbed of my belt

2004, Melody Tiamat, The Dragon's Bard 2: Land's End, page 196:


ladyporn

Half the women in the country are getting all hot and bothered over this ladyporn book, Fifty Shades of Grey, and the British establishment offers little more than a Frankie Howerdstyle “ooh err missus!”

Cupcakes, Pinterest, and Ladyporn: Feminized Popular Culture in the Early Twenty-First Century.

2015, Elana Levine (ed.), University of Illinois, title

The "Dr. Phil rape tweet" saga having finally petered out, some desperate web writer, likely digging for click bait on a slow news day, unearthed a once-obscure sub-genre of self-published ladyporn over at Amazon.com.

2015, Kathy Shaidle, Confessions of a Failed Slut, Thought Catalog, published 2014, →ISBN:

(informal) Erotic literature written by and/or intended to appeal to women.


cryoprison

(science fiction) A prison whose inmates are cryogenically frozen for the duration of their sentences.


hell-born

hell-born (comparative more hell-born, superlative most hell-born)

more hell-born (comparative)
most hell-born (superlative)


Hunger Games

From the titular fictional gladiatorial contests in The Hunger Games, first published in 2008.

2012 December 28, “Jockey James Winks falls prey to the Hunger Games of riding”, in news.com.au, archived from the original on 2012-12-28:

If the term “daytime TV” used to be synonymous with slightly ramshackle, undemanding programming attuned to the languid circadian rhythms of hungover students and the retired, it’s now a hyper-competitive arena of mechanical oneupmanship, a Hunger Games for image and sound editors.

2014 September 10, Graeme Virtue, “Who’s Doing the Dishes? is the best daytime TV in years”, in The Guardian:

Not playing the hunger games of success, not undergoing the mechanical hoopla of PR, he could go on stubbornly being Kent Haruf, doing his job.

2015 May 27, Ursula K Le Guin, “Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf review – happiness at the end of life”, in The Guardian:

“[Registration week] always been The Hunger Games of scheduling,” Valdez said. “You ultimately get in based on timing and luck.”

2015 November 9, Nicholas Da Silva, “Registration Week: May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor”, in The Montclarion, archived from the original on 2016-03-04:

(neologism) A vicious contest, especially one that is winner-take-all.


Hannigram

"I know there's a lot of Hannigram shipping out there," Gamier said, referring to the Lecter-Graham pairing. "That's not my bag, but I get it and respect them. I am more of a Hannigail or Hannibloom shipper."

2014 February 21, Dana Hayes, “Hannibal's Hungry Tumblr Fandom”, in Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting:

Aja Romano, writing for The Daily Dot during the series' first season in 2013, observed that “slashers,” fans who “ship” (imagine or write relationships) between same-sex characters, “are already coming out in droves for Hannibal/Graham, or 'Hannigram,' as fans have dubbed the obligatory ship portmanteau.”

2015, Jeff Casey, “Queer Cannibals and Deviant Detectives: Subversion and Homosocial Desire in NBC's Hannibal”, in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, volume 32, number 6:

Perhaps this is part of the reason why Hannibal, though it has an extremely devoted, practically religious fanbase (including a sizeable contingent of “Hannigram” shippers), has failed to achieve quite the level of widespread success attained by similarly lurid series like American Horror Story or The Walking Dead.

2015 June 3, Eric Thurm, “Hannibal showrunner: 'We are not making television. We are making a pretentious art film from the 80s'”, in The Guardian:

(fandom slang) The ship of characters Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham from the television series Hannibal.


Sol VI

From its position as the sixth planet out from the Sun (Sol).

(poetic, science fiction) The planet Saturn.


Sol VII

From its position as the seventh planet out from the Sun (Sol).

(poetic, science fiction) The planet Uranus.


Sol VIII

From its position as the eighth planet out from the Sun (Sol).

(poetic, science fiction) The planet Neptune.


ER=EPR

From ER (Einstein-Rosen bridge) and EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox).

quantum entanglement
quantum entanglement

(quantum mechanics) A conjecture equating the effects of quantum entanglement (EPR) with a wormhole (ER) connection between the entangled particles, relating quantum physics to spacetime physics.


Bagheera

Bagheera
Rudyard Kipling
The Jungle Book

From Hindi बाघ (bāgh, “tiger”), coined by Rudyard Kipling in The Jungle Book. The scouting term and the cat-name comes from the character name.

The deputy leader of a pack of Cub Scouts.


earthstorm

This earthquake was an earthstorm. Hills were waves, and houses cast adrift were wrecked on them.

1931, Charles Fort, “Lo!”, in The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover Publications, published 1974, →ISBN, page 768:

There is an earthstorm, disks of rock careering skyward, buffeting the train.

2004, China Miéville, Iron Council, Del Rey, →ISBN:

It had come from the west, the shock wave from some almighty earthstorm in lost America, rolling clear across the Atlantic before breaking over Thursday Island. It had smashed down buildings, and sunk the ships whose dead masts could still be seen jutting sadly from the water in the harbor.

2010, Philip Reeve, Fever Crumb: A Web of Air, Scholastic, →ISBN:

(seismology, weather, fantasy) An extremely powerful earthquake; a storm involving earth or rock blowing through the air.


Potterfic

I'm not into slash, so I haven't read any of the Harry/Draco stuff, and I can ony^([sic]) tolerate so much "teen romance" but some of the longer Potterfic pieces have some VERY interesting ideas being expounded.

2001 December 20, YN1 Bernadette M. Crumb, “Re: LONG speculative SPOILERS regarding Snape.”, in alt.callahans (Usenet):

Well... I'm setting up for a clash between Draco and Harry if and when I ever get around to the third installment of my long Potterfic trilogy.

2002 November 11, Kuroi Kage, “Re: Draco Malfoy, bad to the bone?”, in alt.fan.harry-potter (Usenet):

Of the three main characters of the Harry Potter series, only Hermione is so routinely morphed into flawlessness. Perhaps because girls who read and write Potterfic already identify with Hermione, they feel motivated to re-create her as an unattainable ideal, […]

2006, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, volume 31, page 57:

(fandom slang) Fan fiction based on the Harry Potter series.


Buffyfic

en-noun

Buffyfic (countable and uncountable, plural Buffyfics)

Also, this is, amazingly enough, my first ever Buffyfic, so be kind.

2001 January 17, vicpusateri [username], “Fic: Xander Steps Up [1/1]”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative (Usenet):

I'll probably be switching back and forth between this and a Buffyfic I'm writing, but there shouldn't be any more huge gaps *crossing fingers*

2002 August 12, Katie M, “See No Evil, See No Good (Part 24/?)”, in alt.tv.er.creative (Usenet):

The first Buffyfic I ever read was set in the Bronze: Changing Hands (I think that was the title).

2004 March 1, MSey [username], “Re: FIC Stepping Out 1/1 Buffy/Angel PG”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative (Usenet):

(countable, fandom slang) A fanfic based on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I decided I should write. And what would be more fun to write then^([sic]) Buffyfic?

1999 November 3, Lots42 [username], “Fumbling creative writer with questions”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative (Usenet):

All I know is that I don't feel the need to write Buffyfic anymore: Joss doesn't leave any character gaps AT ALL.

2000 October 31, Janet Caires Lesgold, “Buffy vs. TXF”, in alt.fan.david-duchovny (Usenet):

This might be a case where the good old-fashioned unscientific survey comes in handy, as this is a NG where the readers clearly read far more Buffyfic than the average fan, and probably a wider variety--since this isn't a specialty fic group.

2003 November 27, M. Scott Eiland, “Re: Most famous?”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative (Usenet):

(uncountable, fandom slang) Such fan fiction collectively.


Twific

Finally, in the third section, we discuss Bella's enhanced agency in Twifics in which authors give her a desiring gaze that is not limited to Edward.

2011, Malin Isaksson, Maria Lindgren Leavenworth, “Gazing, initiating, desiring: Alternative constructions of agency and sex in Twifics”, in Mariah Larsson, Ann Steiner, editors, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twilight: Studies in Fiction, Media and a Contemporary Cultural Experience, Nordic Academic Press, →ISBN, page 128:

Regarding to a huge number of Twifics, it is impossible to make some general claims about them because the genre and the level of originality depend on the skills and age of an individual writer.

2012, Eva Strýčková, "How the Vampire in a Volvo Ran Over the Prince on a White Horse: The 'Twilight Saga' and its Influence on the Phenomenon of Vampires", thesis submitted to Tomas Bata University, page 40

Shades obviously riffs on that story as well as on other popular Twifics.

2013, Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World, BenBella Books, →ISBN:

(fandom slang) A fanfic based on the Twilight novel series and the associated films.


Treksmut

In fact, I think one of the main reasons people write and read Treksmut (tm), is that the show very rarely shows these extremely attractive and appealing characters in romantic situations or settings, except for one-episode flings, which are usually conveniently forgotten by the next show, although this is refreshingly rare on DS9 and Voyager.

1997 May 5, Joanne Collins, “Re: TrekSmut, PWPs and Emotional Subtexts (Long and involved)”, in alt.startrek.creative (Usenet):

Has anyone had any problems storing Treksmut on a Tripod homepage?

1998 April 7, Deanna, “OT: Tripod and Treksmut?”, in alt.startrek.creative (Usenet):

Also: I'm twenty-one now! So I can read Treksmut anywhere!! :-)

2002 June 4, saavaant [username], “OT: My personal pages, and my birthday!!”, in alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated (Usenet):

(fandom slang) Sexually-explicit fan fiction based on the Star Trek television series and films.


hetsmut

I think most slash is better than most hetsmut, but that's just me.

2002 June 26, Atalanta Pendragonne [username], “Re: OT Anne Rice newsgroup”, in alt.support.childfree (Usenet):

I love McCoy hetsmut but sometimes I have trouble finding pairings to latch onto.

2003 November 14, Farfalla [username], “Re: NEW2U TOS "Blue-eyed Satyrs" Mc/Saa [NC-17] Trek hetsmut”, in alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated (Usenet):

You're making me want to see hetsmut between these two. Damn you!

2006, Kirby Crow, quoted in Eden Lackner, Barbara Lynn Lucas, & Robin Anne Reid, "Cunning Linguists: The Bisexual Erotics of Words/Silence/Flesh", in Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays (eds. Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse), McFarland & Company (2006), page 203

(fandom slang) Sexually explicit fan fiction involving opposite-sex characters.


enemyslash

As an intimatopic 'enemyslash' fic, Harry Potter and the Bound Prince centers on the development of intimacy as expressed through sex and eroticized comfort between two characters that are enemies in the series canon […]

2010, Darlene Rose Hampton, "Beyond Resistance: Gender, Performance, and Fannish Practice in Digital Culture", dissertation submitted to the University of Oregon, page 102

As a result, Harry Potter fandom again denies well-known theories of slash, as its most popular pairing – Harry/Draco – belongs to the enemyslash category.

2010, Sigrid Sindhuber, "Slashing Harry Potter: The phenomenon of border-transgression in fan fiction", thesis submitted to the University of Vienna, page 65

Catherine Tosenberger suggests that the joy of an enemyslash pairing lies in watching the antagonists overcome their differences.

(fandom slang) Slash fan fiction focusing on a romantic and/or sexual relationship between adversaries.


buddyslash

Slash about Harry and Draco, who are enemies in canon, complicates academic theories of slash that are predicated upon the Kirk/Spock “buddyslash” model.

2007, Catherine Tosenberger, "Potterotics: Harry Potter Fanfiction On The Internet", dissertation submitted to the University of Florida, page 124

Although the pairing of Harry and Ron may seem as a typical example of buddyslash, one has to consider the presence of Hermione Granger as Harry's second sidekick.

2010, Sigrid Sindhuber, "Slashing Harry Potter: The phenomenon of border-transgression in fan fiction", thesis submitted to the University of Vienna, page 67

It is most commonly noted that the first famous pairing of Kirk/Spock, or Spirk, falls under the category of buddyslash.

2013, Janidean Bruner, "I 'like' slash: the demographics of Facebook slash communities", thesis submitted to the University of Louisville, page 10

(fandom slang) Slash fan fiction focusing on a romantic and/or sexual relationship between friends.


powerslash

The second most popular Potter slash pairing is Harry/Snape, which belongs to the powerslash category, and again defies findings of early fan fiction studies focusing on buddyslash.

Order of the Phoenix featured Harry and Snape (a powerslash pairing par excellence) forced to become uncomfortably intimate with each other: Snape is teaching Harry how to prevent Voldemort from reading his thoughts by...reading Harry's thoughts; […]

2011, Catherine Tosenberger, “Homosexuality at the Online Hogwarts: Harry Potter Slash Fanfiction”, in Michelle Ann Abate, Kenneth B. Kidd, editors, Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature, →ISBN, page 343:

Although the second most popular pairing in Potter slash fandom, Snape/Harry (or Snarry), could be categorized as enemyslash, it is also a prime example of powerslash.

(fandom slang) Slash fan fiction focusing on a romantic and/or sexual relationship between characters of unequal social status or rank.


Xanderista

I used to be a major Xanderista. But this season, he's bugged me a lot.

1999 April 11, QueenChase [username], “Re: Who does Xander Love?”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):

Victoria P. is a staunch Xanderista, and will take Xander's part in almost any discussion, even when she knows he is wrong.

2000 June 7, vicpusateri [username], “Re: OT: Challenge to Regulars”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):

I recall that Xanderistas did react in the way you describe, even coining the term "Xander Slander".

2003 February 11, Rose, “Re: So Xander has (Spoilers for "First Date")”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):

(Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom slang) A fan of the character Xander Harris from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


Angelista

Most of the rabid Angelistas have defended his hiding as nothing more than an issue of self-protection against Buffy's fantasy of Angel being staked by Giles, and yet in "Amends," Angel himself finally decided it would be better to die than to ever pose a threat again.

1999 April 6, Micky DuPree, “Re: Is Marti Noxon a man-hating sadist?”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):

I'm an Angelista who likes Xander too, but Xander irritates me occasionally so I can still go dualistic from time to time. ;-)

1999 May 14, DesertRoaz [username], “Re: EW article about Angel's show”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):

The split was between the Angelistas and the Xanderistas.

2002 December 2, William George Ferguson, “Re: Buffy fan subgroups”, in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer (Usenet):

(Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom slang) A fan of the character Angel from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.


AB language

Coined in 1929 by J. R. R. Tolkien, from the first letters of Ancrene Wisse and Bodleian Library.

(linguistics) A variety of Middle English found in the Corpus manuscript and characterized by French and Norse loanwords, colloquial expressions, conservative spelling, and similarities to Old English syntax.

AB language
Ancrene Wisse
J. R. R. Tolkien


riddle me that, Batman

From the formulaic phrase riddle me this, additionally referring to the Batman comic book universe, in which the fictional supervillain the Riddler would pose puzzles for Batman to solve (riddle).

"That too. But it's this: how can a benevolent being let such bad things happen? Terrorism, world hunger, AIDS, people dying too young of cancer. Riddle me that, Batman.”

2009, John C. Stipa, No Greater Sacrifice, page 55:

"You have no idea what's going on, Melanie," she snarled. "No. Freaking. Clue. I'm going to have to join witness protection, and then where will you be, huh? Riddle me that, Batman!"

2014, Marni Bates, Awkwardly Ever After, page 77:

Why can't Jerry and I be together forever like a real couple? Riddle me that, Batman? Society? No. Idiots.

2014, Jason Medina, The Diary of Audrey Malone Frayer, page 135:

Said to demand that the listener take notice of a question or situation just mentioned, especially one that is particularly difficult to solve or explain.

riddle me this

a demand that the listener solve a conundrum


meatsuit

His physical body felt like a meatsuit compared to the lightness he had just known.

Magically barred from entering the station by the salt barriers, the demons fan out to possess 30 or so town locals. In their newly acquired “meatsuits,” they return to the station and gaze eerily at the building.

2013, Galen A. Foresman, Supernatural and Philosophy:

(fantasy) A physical body regarded as something being temporarily worn, e.g. when possessed by a spirit or demon.


Duchovnik

His bangs fall in the right way, they're the right length...if I were DD, I'd get a still from this ep and tell the hair stylist "Just make it look like this." And I'm not even a Duchovnik, really. It just stood out that much.

1998 July 12, Stephanie Martinez, “Re: Totally Irrelevant Preferences”, in alt.tv.x-files (Usenet):

while i may not be a Duchovnik, i can still adore Mulder.

2001 April 3, clarkal, “Re: DEADALIVE.... what a weak way to bring Mulder back (Spoilers)”, in alt.tv.x-files (Usenet):

I posted opinions in the hope that changes might have been made that might have brought back all the departed viewers (do you really think that all the viewers who defected were die-hard Duchovniks??) and allowed a truly groundbreaking show to continue.

2002 February 21, Fiona, “Re: spoil-sports (not OT)”, in alt.tv.x-files (Usenet):

(fandom slang) A fan of American actor David Duchovny (born 1960).


conapt

Coined by Philip K. Dick from condominium + apartment.

The taxi let him off on the roof field of his conapt building; he descended by moving ramp and arrived at his own door.

I could sense there was no one else in the conapt.

The fact that she had begged him not to leave the conapt just now, expressing fear for his life with the Inquisitors at large, had likely contributed to those thoughts.

2011, Michael Reaves, Patterns of Force:

(science fiction) A condominium apartment.


Egg

(automotive, informal) A Koenigsegg car.

Heh, i don't think she was that cunning to begin with, but romancing the Egg has rubbed off on her ;D.

I'm a big fan of the Egg because he's so complex and intriguing.

2017 November 8, GreenDragonPatriot, Reddit:

Either BioWare got a new voice actor for The Egg (derogatory) or Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will feature another villain to contest against — and knowing Dragon Age like I do, it’s likely the latter.

2023 December 4, Ash Parrish, “Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has another new trailer, and promises more details in 'Summer 2024'”, in The Verge:

(with the, Dragon Age fandom slang, humorous) The character Solas from the Dragon Age franchise (referring to his baldness).


(fandom slang) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams.


Mercutio

One of the main characters of William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.


televiewer

(science fiction) A device for viewing things remotely, along the lines of a television.


superregeneration

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

It seems probable that this is a case of 'superregeneration'. As is well known, the tail of Plethodon is very easily detached. A study of the tissues of this tail gives evidence which, though not unquestionable, leads me to believe that it is relatively younger than the more anterior parts of the body. The experiments of Tornier ('97) and others in producing similar abnormalities by cutting off the tails of salamanders give added probability to this view.

1894, Tufts College, Tufts University, Tufts College Studies, Tufts College, Medford, The College, page 388:

At the time Bateson’s book was written, however, little or nothing was known regarding the origin of supernumera y appendages in either the arthropods or the vertebrates. Since then a large amount of experimental evidence has accumulated to show that they may be formed by superregeneration, especially by regeneration from complex or irregular wound surfaces.

1904, Ross Granville Harrison, William Keith Brooks, Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, American Society of Zoologists, The Journal of Experimental Zoology, Wiley-Liss, page 94:

Functional disturbances of the brain might give us the explanation here, just as material disturbances may serve to explain superregeneration in spite of all vitalism.

1905, Charles Scribner’s Sons, The Approach to Philosophy, Harvard University Press, page 225:

Superregeneration. Includes eternal youth.

2012 January 29, “You choose a superability and I will find a fault in it”, in reddit.com:

(biology, rare) Extreme, superhuman regeneration.


digislate

I have us make maps of our territory on digislates we found in a waterlogged cellar at the bottom of a ravine, […]

I used to borrow one of the inventory digislates with general network access, then slip up here to research.

(science fiction) A computer resembling a slate or tablet.


caladrius

From Medieval Latin caladrius, from Byzantine Greek χαλαδριός (khaladriós), from Ancient Greek χαραδριός (kharadriós).

(mythology) A mythical bird that had healing powers.


Shahnameh

From Iranian Persian شاهنامه (šâhnâme), from Classical Persian شاهنامه (šāhnāma).

An epic poem written by Ferdowsi around 1000 CE, telling the mythical and historical past of ancient Persia from the beginning of the world until the Muslim invasion.


Ernie and Bert

The names of two Muppet characters in the children's TV series Sesame Street.

(informal, figurative) Two inseparable friends whose personalities are vastly different.


get to the fireworks factory

en-verb

get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> to the fireworks factory

get to the fireworks factory (third-person singular simple present gets to the fireworks factory, present participle getting to the fireworks factory, simple past got to the fireworks factory, past participle (UK) got to the fireworks factory or (US) gotten to the fireworks factory)

gets to the fireworks factory (present singular third-person)
getting to the fireworks factory (participle present)
got to the fireworks factory (past)
got to the fireworks factory (UK participle past)
gotten to the fireworks factory (US participle past)

From the 1997 Simpsons episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", which shows an episode of the fictional Itchy & Scratchy Show in which the characters' journey to a fireworks factory is interrupted by the anticlimactic arrival of a new character, Poochie; while watching the episode, Milhouse Van Houten wails, "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?!".

Jesus falls again, and now some woman brings him a drink. I'm getting so tired of this whole sequence. When are they going to get to the fireworks factory!?

2004 April 9, Johan Gustafsson, “[TAN] Once more, with Passion...”, in rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan (Usenet):

Is Raven ever going to wrestle on TV? Or at least get to the fireworks factory?

2005 November 5, Poot Rootbeer, “Poot's post on TNA iMPACT! primetime, 11/3/05”, in rec.sport.pro-wrestling (Usenet):

No, that's a different crazy Egyptian tycoon, and that's assuming he even is crazy, which is a pretty safe assumption because once Diana Spencer marries into your family all her new relatives are automatically crazy, especially if any of them produced the terrible Spielberg movie "Hook" in which Robin Williams takes forever to get to the fireworks factory.

2006 September 22, James Kibo Parry, “Re: Further research into the word "braintanning"”, in alt.religion.kibology (Usenet):

The narrative going around about the new Godzilla, which waits about an hour before it finally gets to the fireworks factory, is that it’s a radical return to this kind of old-fashioned creature-feature restraint.

2014 May 17, Forrest Wickman, “When Should You Show the Monster? The Rules of “Cinematic Foreplay.””, in Slate:

Punching up and punching down. I've flirted with these terms a bit already, without adequately exploring their trajectories. Here, in Chapter 3, we finally get to the fireworks factory.

2024 April 9, David E. Low, Transgressive Humor in Classrooms: Punching Up, Punching Down, and Critical Literacy Practices, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 1986:

(fandom slang, idiomatic) To reach the most interesting, eventful or important part of a storyline.

Milhouse Van Houten
The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show
The Itchy & Scratchy Show
The Simpsons


Dave Spart

Coined by Private Eye, playing on the word Spartacist (“a member of the International Communist League”).

Now every Dave Spart up the commune knows that basically, to his mind, the only, like, real theatre, man, is made by the people, you know, in the street, man, in the street.

1981, Reyner Banham, Design by Choice, London: Academy Editions:

But of course there is no shortage of people with ingenious ideas about how public money should be spent, and Ken is quite right when he warns us about a whole new generation of Dave Sparts currently working up from the grass roots

We don't get many Dave Sparts these days chopping hands, invoking the working class and using the word "total" twice in every sentence.

Like McGuinness, Wark's Left is populated by a cast of grotesques; of Dave Sparts who sleep with copies of Trotsky's Literature and Revolution tucked under their pillows.


dragonborn

A single dragonborn guard held the door.

2014, Dallas S. Paskell, Medieval: Book of Blood:

(fantasy) Born with some physical or spiritual connection to dragons.


dragonborn

“Powerful magic and tangled, dragonborn,” the Shepherd woman said.

2006, Murray J. D. Leeder, Son of Thunder, page 220:

A big man, he stood at least as tall as Shara and maybe as tall as Roghar, with shoulders almost as wide as the dragonborn’s.

Dragonborn […] first appeared in the Dragons of Despair module (1984) for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as “dragonmen.”

2011, Michael J. Tresca, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, page 81:

(fantasy) A person born with some physical or spiritual connection to dragons.


afairyist

From a- + fairy + -ist, based on atheist.

But consider this: your typical atheist does not believe in fairies, goblins, sprites, water nymphs, demons, angels, ghosts or elves either. Why not call him an 'afairyist', or an 'agoblinist', or an 'anymphist', and so endlessly on?

2010 March 30, A. C. Grayling, Ideas That Matter: The Concepts That Shape the 21st Century, Basic Books, →ISBN, page 38:

Nobody can actually say for certain that anything doesn't exist, but I'm an atheist in the same way as I am an aleprechaunist and an afairyist and an apinkunicornist.

2019 February 24, Dawkins on Religion, spoken by Richard Dawkins, via Al Jazeera:

(very rare, humorous) A person who does not believe in fairies.


memory core

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya: I tracked a patrol of geth to an uncharted world. I waited for one to become separated from its unit. Then I disabled it and removed its memory core.
Captain Anderson: I thought the geth fried their memory cores when they died. Some kind of defense mechanism.
Shepard: How did you manage to preserve the memory core?[…]
Tali'Zorah nar Rayya: According to the memory core, the Reapers were a hyper-advanced machine race that existed 50,000 years ago.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

(science fiction, computing) A (semi-)permanent computer memory storage device that may be extracted, and may or may not be separate from the computer core.


computer core

(science fiction, computing) a computer processing center or central computer


set phasers to

In reference to the 1960s US television series Star Trek, in which the crew could set their phaser weapons either to stun or to kill.

(humorous) Prepare to; commence (used with a following verb or noun)


newsnet

(science fiction) A news broadcasting network.


jiang hu

(crime fiction) the subculture of the criminal underworld


cheese monkey

From cheese-eating surrender monkey, a term coined in a 1995 episode of The Simpsons.

> Ahem, I'm not French ;-)
Darn, right you're not! You used to be a pure cheese monkey. Now, you're simply pure spud.

2003 March 13, Orchid, “OT: naked war protests”, in alt.games.diablo (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-23:

You'll notice a common cause among all international liberals--the sheep fucker in Australia (192 Day Road, Sydney), the cheese monkey in France, John Kerry--they're all together somehow, all operating along similar lines of force. Is it love of America that unites them? No? Then what is it?

2004 June 20, Jones, “OK, so no WMD and now no link between Iraq and Al-q. My question is........”, in rec.music.beatles (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-23:

Republicans don't deny Bush has isolated the USA. However, they say "Fuck the world. Fuck the UN. The French are surrendering cheese monkeys. The Canadian are cheeseheads, the .... "

2004 September 18, Roedy Green, “Bush isolates more and more the USA in front of the world”, in alt.politics.bush (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-23:

> Vive la France!
>
Viva for the cheese monkeys? That's how you must have call them in 2003.

2007 May 7, dapra, “The French Revolution”, in us.military.army (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-23:

So what I'm gonna propose as governor of this state is that we plan a massive invasion force and go ahead and invade France. Because if there's one country we can beat in a goddamn arm-wrestle it's them limp-wristed patronizing cheese monkeys.

2013, Jock Cranley, quotee, Grand Theft Auto V, scene: Blaine County Talk Radio:

(slang, derogatory, humorous, uncommon) A French person.


nayika

Any of the eight types of romantic heroine described in the Natya Shastra, an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts.


Star Wars Day

(fandom slang) A fan holiday celebrating the Star Wars franchise, on May 4th.


expy

From a clipping of exported character + -y. Coined by TV Tropes in 2006.

I like your novel but your protagonist is pretty clearly a Scooby-Doo expy.

The demon-run Raptor News Network clearly parodies that of the American conservative Fox News Network in both rhetoric and appearance, with its anchorman Bob Barbas being a thinly veiled expy of Bill O’Reilly.

2014, Jonathon O'Donnell, “Our Demonic World”, in Robert Arp, editor, The Devil and Philosophy: The Nature of His Game, page 120:

The monsters vary from completely original creations to bizarre expies of famous characters and people, […]

2018 February 27, Amy Nash, “You should be watching Monster Factory”, in Concrete, University of East Anglia, page 21:

[…] Thimbleweed Park is an obvious X Files parody with direct expies of Mulder and Scully as protagonists, so a 1990s setting is the natural choice […]

2019 March 1, Robin Wilde, “The 1990s: A Decade of Adventure”, in Forge Press, University of Sheffield, page 36:

(fandom slang) A character in a work of fiction who is a stand-in for or knockoff of a character from an unrelated work or of a real person.


murderhobo

en-noun

murderhobo (plural murderhobos or murderhoboes)

murderhobos (plural)
murderhoboes (plural)

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

Know that you're not going to be the only group of murderhobos out there though, and there's an increasing chance that you may run into others the more dungeons you explore.

2017, Jason Paul McCartan, Through Dungeons Deeper: A Survival Guide for Dungeoneers as Written by a Survivor, page 99:

Grab some stone, craft a sword and go on, be a murderhobo.

2019, Drew Sleep, “Minecraft”, in Retro Gamer UK, number 200, page 100:

Maybe you joined a new group expecting a heavy role-playing experience, just to discover the rest of the party was a group of murderhobos with their hearts set on loot and plunder.

2021 September 16, Brenden Bobby, “Roll d20 for consent”, in Reader, Sandpoint, Idaho, page 14:

(roleplaying games, derogatory or humorous) A character who wanders the gameworld, unattached to any community, indiscriminately killing and looting.


cryobed

(science fiction) A bed-like unit in which a person can be cryogenically preserved.


Slobbovia

From slob + -ov (forming Slavic possessives) + -ia (forming placenames). First used as Lower Slobbovia in the Li'l Abner comic strip in 1946, its capital named "Raswashingsputin, D.C.", and its culture largely bagel-based, with vague reference to poor but moderately developed countries similar to Eastern Europe. Later maps of Lower Slobbovia placed it in Manchuria and eastern Siberia.
Compare sloboda, a similar-sounding word from Slavic languages.

af

Coordinate term: Freedonia

Suppose that there are 80 births in Lower Slobbovia during 1967, and that the population of Lower Slobbovia was 2,000 on July 1, 1967.

1972, Arnold Birenbaum, Social Problems: Private Troubles and Public Issues, page 50:

(At this point, only readers who know the difference between Slovakia, Slavonia and Slovenia might want to proceed; Slobbovia doesn't count.)

1991 December 22, Josef Joffe, “America's in the Balcony as Europe Takes Center Stage”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The demand and supply curves for shoes are the same in Upper Slobbovia as in Lower Slobbovia. In Upper Slobbovia, shoes are subject to a price ceiling of $2 per pair (which is below equilibrium), and 1,000 pairs are sold per month.

2013 [1989], Steven Landsburg, Price Theory and Applications, 9th edition, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 267:

(chiefly US) Used as a placeholder country name in textbook problems, classroom examples, etc.

(roleplaying games) A play-by-mail roleplaying game notionally based on Diplomacy.


Slobbovian

An imaginary language spoken in the imaginary country Slobbovia


shuttleport

(science fiction) A spaceport from which shuttles depart.


copulatress

(rare, science fiction) A female copulator.


Buttfuckistan

"In Buttfuckistan or Kleptomalia. Where being a warez dOOd is an honorable trade. We release our libraries and binaries and APIs and fifteen minutes later, they're burning CDs in every souk and selling them for ten cents a throw."

2003, Cory Doctorow, A Place So Foreign and Eight More Stories:

Door would slam shut whenever they needed the slightest favor, suppliers would sneer and shit on them with impunity, making things so humiliating and disagreeable that it would almost be a mercy when the final blow fell, and they were banished to run fertiliser sales in Buttfuckistan.

(humorous, slang, vulgar) A mythical far away uncivilized country.


Sinbadian

en-adj

Sinbadian (comparative more Sinbadian, superlative most Sinbadian)

more Sinbadian (comparative)
most Sinbadian (superlative)

Bāqiya begs Walāʼ to stop these Sinbadian journeys which do not particularly succeed; in addition, she asks him to find other means of struggle within the framework of the new political reality and according to the rules governing this reality.

2002, Ibrahim Taha, The Palestinian Novel: A Communication Study, page 81:


dragonbone

en-noun

dragonbone (countable and uncountable, plural dragonbones)


Earthport

(science fiction) A spaceport on the planet Earth.


double kill

en-verb

double kill (third-person singular simple present double kills, present participle double killing, simple past and past participle double killed)

double kills (present singular third-person)
double killing (participle present)
double killed (participle past)
double killed (past)

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

(fiction, transitive) To kill an already dead being, such as a ghost, a zombie, a skeleton, etc.


red pill

From a scene in the film The Matrix (1999), where the main character, who lives in a virtual world known as the Matrix, is given a choice between a red pill that will allow him to learn the truth about the Matrix and a blue pill that will return him to his simulated life.

To take the red pill is to choose to take responsibility for our lives, both on the personal and larger social levels.

2003, Glenn Yeffeth, Taking the Red Pill, page 148:

Do you want to continue to live in the false world of dieting, where emotional pain is numbed, health risks are ignored, and false promises are made? Or do you want to take the red pill, as it were, and see the reality of a world in which food and eating don't dominate or take over your life?

2011, Stephen Arterburn, Linda Mintle, Lose It for Life: The Total Solution, →ISBN, page 49:

We can offer ourselves the option of taking the red pill and, when the circumstances are right, we shall not be able to resist the lure of the naked truth; however hard it may be to stare it in the face.

2012, Yanis Varoufakis, Joseph Halevi, Nicholas Theocarakis, Modern Political Economics: Making Sense of the Post-2008 World, →ISBN:

Until the media and economy are democratically structured and regulated, the best people can do is take the red pill -- that is, utilize the alternative media for information and thereby purge their neurological systems of large misleading segments of their past education and the mainstream popular media.

2013, John C Alessio, Social Problems and Inequality, →ISBN:

As you choke down the red pill, we will begin to expound on that eternally important question that few people have bothered to ask, save once, likely around the tender age of four [...] the eternally important question, "What is money?"

2013, David Mint, What is Money? A Quest to Answer the Question of the Ages:

(informal) Something that enables or compels a person to overcome illusion and perceive harsher reality.

Most red pill thinkers will have already debunked this one and replaced it with a better story.

2017, Peter Wright, Red Pill Psychology: Psychology for men in a gynocentric world:

With the growth of 'the red pill' and similar such groups among men there is a growing realisation that life is very different in dating for 'alpha males' compared to everyone else.

2017, Player Mastermind, Gold Diggers and Sugar Daddies: The Red Pill Guide to Hypergamy:

The problems faced by men in America—the problems the Red Pill community points to as proof that we live in a gynocentric society—have deep historical roots; however, the Red Pill represents a new, dangerous phase of American masculinity in the internet age.

2018, Donna Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age:

Indeed, this is the surprising core of the whole Red Pill theory of seduction: never stop begging for it.

If you are attracted to the truths presented in Red Pill culture, but are put off by any morality or atheism present, this book is for you.

2019, James a Deprisco, The Catholic Red Pill: A Guide for Men:

(slang, by extension) The subculture of men who share a belief in the gynocentrism of modern society; manosphere.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see red, pill.


red pill

red pill (third-person singular simple present red pills, present participle red pilling, simple past and past participle red pilled)

red pills (present singular third-person)
red pilling (participle present)
red pilled (participle past)
red pilled (past)

black pill

to adopt a nihilistic far-right worldview

Fuck's sake. All this brainful red-pilling and you just trying to throw me off the trail again.

Being “red pilled” would surely soon become the rage.

2019, Jack Suss, Soul Enticed II: More Essays in Unlearning, page 146:

Now, I believe Q is President Trump, working possibly with Stephen Miller, to drop this information behind the scenes to get a campaign going, to red-pill people as to what is going on with the Storm, and their takedown of the Deep State, which includes the Deep State pedophile scene.

2020, David Neiwert, Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That are Killing Us, page 87:

(transitive, intransitive, informal) To enable a person to overcome illusion and perceive harsher reality.

rougepiluler

YouTuber and sister traditionalist Lacey Lynn commented on this video, extolling Faucheux and Collett because they had “red pilled me and I owe yall so much.

2019, Alexandra Minna Stern, Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate:

(transitive, intransitive, slang) To cause someone to believe in gynocentrism in modern society.


Pippi Longstocking

en-noun

Pippi Longstocking (plural Pippi Longstockings)

Astrid Lindgren
Inger Nilsson
Pippi Longstocking

Named after the character created by Astrid Lindgren, calque of Swedish Pippi Långstrump.

named-after

Little and skinny for ten years old, cursed with waist-length hair and freckles that all the kids teased made her look just like Pippi Longstocking, she had been, that day, the butt of jokes from the entire fifth grade.

2007, Karen Robards, Ghost Moon, Random House:

She has threaded rags through her hair, tying it in two Pippi Longstocking braids.

2009, Rachel Shteir, Gypsy: the Art of the Tease, Yale University Press, page 140:

If I turned around, you could see a bizarre array of silver clippies, and a “Pippi Longstocking” part down the middle.

2010, Laura DuPriest, Natural Beauty: Pamper Yourself with Salon Secrets at Home, Random House, page 15:

Put her in pigtails and stick her finger in a light socket, and she’d be Pippi Longstocking.

2011, Julia Watts, Finding H. F., Bella Books:

I was positively Pippi Longstocking, minus the pigtails.

2012, Kate Bornstein, A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology, and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today, Beacon Press:

A person, especially a girl or woman, with long or flamboyant red hair, especially in pigtails or parted down the middle, and prominent freckles.

Pipi Ŝtrumpolonga

a girl with flamboyant red hair in pigtails and freckles

Then we’re swept back to her school days, where we see her giggling like a regular Pippi Longstocking as she spies on Rivera (Alfred Molina) applying his creative juices to an artist’s model while being berated by his wife (Valeria Golino).

2002 October 23, Ella Taylor with Frida (reviewer), “Sex-mad and Self-obsessed”, in LA Weekly:

You’re a regular Pippi Longstocking, you know that?

2014, P. V. Lundqvist, The Counterfeit Father: A Tony Pandy Mystery, Stick Raven Press:

Have I discovered my inner Pippi Longstocking?

2015, Patrice Vecchione, Step Into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life, Simon & Schuster, page 10:

A person, especially a girl or woman, given to headstrong, wild behaviour, flights of fancy, or irrepressible optimism.


holonovel

(science fiction) A holographic entertainment akin to a novel.


holobook

(science fiction) A holographic entertainment akin to a book.


fastwalker

From fast + walker, from the notion that UFOs travel fast. Originally a code word created by NORAD.


little Johnny

Obviously, few counselors would sit idly by while little Johnny became a bandit. To do so would be socially unethical and indeed would violate the very philosophy of teaching.

1950, California Journal of Secondary Education, volume 25, page 335:

First, create a "board" titled Johnny's Education, for example. Then, search for the items that will help you support little Johnny's educational needs, and pin them to your Johnny's Education board.

2013, Jillian Smart, Parent Support: 30 Ways to Support Your Child's Education:

Schools insist that everything is under their purview—what your kids eat, what they believe, what they say on the playground. Because as long as the school system is doing everything, maybe you won't notice that little Johnny can't read.

2013, Mike Gallagher, 50 Things Liberals Love to Hate, page 210:

An archetypal child in the context of the education system.


vrock

Introduced in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game in the 1970s. Possibly related to Swedish vråk (“buzzard”).

If you play with certain demons (mariliths, vrocks, hezrous, bone devils, nalfeshnees, pit fiends, or water demons), you could eventually get Yeenoghu anywhere, and then he could get you Demo.

2001, Kate Nepveu, “some tough questions?”, in rec.games.roguelike.nethack (Usenet):

The hag, after seeing her threats had no effect on Liann, left her alone, though usually watched over by the vrock.

2005, Trina L. Talma, River's End, page 28:

(fantasy) A humanoid demon with the head, claws, and wings of a giant vulture.


nalfeshnee

Huge and incredibly powerful, nalfeshnees ranked high among the servitors of the demon lords, and of all the demons he had ever dealt with, this type was perhaps Gromph's least favorite.

(fantasy) A powerful demon with the head of a boar.


hezrou

Introduced in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game in the 1970s.

A hezrou—a demon like a man-sized toad with spikes running down its back and arms and hands in place of forelegs—turned the handle and threw open the door.

2010, Richard Lee Byers, Unclean: The Haunted Lands:


marilith

A marilith can also constrict with her deadly tail. If the tail hits in combat, it wraps around a victim, automatically inflicting 4- 24 points of crushing damage each round.

1993, Doug Stewart, Gary Gygax, Monstrous Manual, page 338:

(fantasy) A powerful female demon with six arms and the lower body of a snake.


Orthrus

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ὄρθρος (Órthros).

(Greek mythology) A two-headed dog who guarded Geryon's cattle and was killed by Heracles.


passwall

(fantasy) A magic spell allowing a person to travel through solid material.


fudanshi

Borrowed from Japanese 腐(ふ)男(だん)子(し) (fudanshi, literally “rotten boy/man”).


veetol

commute by veetol over a thousand miles

1975, John Brunner, “In the Beginning was the Herd”, in The Shockwave Rider, Harper & Row, page 88:

(chiefly science fiction) Alternative form of VTOL


aunicornist

From a- + unicorn + -ist, based on atheist.

Nearly everyone but small children are asantaists, while the same is true of aunicornists — even if they have never once decided as an absolute fact, or even as a matter of faith, that unicorns do not exist.

2016 January 30, Nicholas Bittner, The Roads Around Religion, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 11:

(humorous) A person who does not believe in unicorns.


succubitch

(fiction, rare, derogatory) A succubus who is a bitch (an irritating, disagreeable woman).


Ctrl-Alt-Delete

Key combination of Ctrl, Alt and Delete. In many computer systems, this interrupts or shuts down the system or some part of it or opens up a shut-down menu.

(science fiction, sometimes humorous) Said by a sentient machine to express the desire to kill or destroy something or someone.


Antarian

(science fiction) Alternative form of Antarean


Antarean

(science fiction) A native or inhabitant of Antares.


infravisible

At the infrared end of the spectrum, lower in frequency than light visible to humans.

(fantasy) Visible by means of infravision.


chernukha

From Russian черну́ха (černúxa), from чёрный (čórnyj, “black”).

Though the USA came in for severe criticism, it was admitted that at least the Americans had perfected a form for the horror film. The Russians were unsure of genres. One speaker made the helpful observation that we should distinguish between home-grown 'chernukha' and foreign 'chernukha'.

It should be emphasized that, although Petrushevskaia's subject matter is weighty, serious, often horrific, her texts abundant in image of loss, death, and difficult love, and her awareness of social problems acute, her style is the factor that raises her work above other practitioners of 'chernukha'.

2000, Sally Dalton-Brown, Voices from the Void: The Genres of Liudmila Petrushevskaia:

Purveyors of screen chernukha, caught up in the late- and post-Soviet 'pathos of pure negation', threw out several perfectly useful babies with the Bolshevik-tainted bathwater, including: (1) narrative coherency, rejected by virtue of its association with Soviet film and perhaps also because it smacked of teleology […]

2008, S. Hutchings, Russia and its Other(s) on Film: Screening Intercultural Dialogue:

There are welcome flashes of humor throughout, particularly the dark, sardonic strain that Russians call chernukha. Watching his hapless father speak about his passion project — a homemade space capsule to be used in the event of a nuclear war — Alexei remarks that “his cheeks remained red with excitement and dermatitis.”

2015 October 23, Alex Halberstadt, “‘The Tsar of Love and Techno,’ by Anthony Marra”, in New York Times:


Matrix defense

From the plot of the film The Matrix (1999), whose protagonist is woken from an illusionary simulated world into the dystopian reality.

There is now a legal strategy called the "Matrix defense," which has been an effective form of insanity defense. The film evidently had a part in inspiring Lee Malvo, the Washington D.C. sniper, and it has been mentioned in connection with the Columbine High School killings, which happened less than a month after the release of The Matrix.

2012, C. Stephen Jaeger, Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 41:

(US, law) A legal defense in which the defendant claims to have committed a crime in the belief that he/she was not in the real world, but in a simulated reality.


feynmanium

From Feynman + -ium. After Richard Feynman, who used a back-of-the-envelope calculation using classical physics to determine that element 137 is the last stably neutrally charged element, as larger elements would need electrons traveling faster than light to become neutral. (This problem goes away when relativity is considered.)

The hypothetical chemical element with atomic number 137.


Geppetto

/d͡ʒəˈpɛtoʊ/

The fictional carpenter who created Pinocchio.


nerfherder

/ˈnɜːfˌhɜːdə/

/ˈnɝfˌhɝːdɚ/

Coined by American filmmaker George Lucas in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back.

coin

How can you think that loser has anything od^([sic]) value to say? He's a misinformed, slimey looking nerfherder, which doesn't belong anywhere on that side of a camera.

2000 March 9, Dion Turner, “Re: the panel”, in aus.tv (Usenet), retrieved 2017-04-28, message-ID <38C7686B.8B5B3177@uq.net.au>:

First of all, Ducttape^([sic]) is not an acceptable substitute for electrical tape you DB! I'd rather you didn't use electrical tape either. QUIT CUTTING WIRES!! And seriously, is this a LAMP CORD running the length of my pretty black and blue nighthawk??? Wtf man? You couldn't do any better than a frapping lamp cord? What a real nerfherder! And if you're going to splice into a wire, why do it after the connector? You just disabled the purpose of the quick disconnect you inbred monkey hugger! Now I gotta unducttape^([sic]) and unwrap the mess you made to get the blinker off!

2010 August 18, Kyle Munz, “[Nighthawk Lovers] Group rules regarding profanity.”, in nighthawk_lovers@googlegroups.com (Usenet), retrieved 2017-04-28, message-ID <AANLkTinf9kz8X299POXzbKkXTB5jJfVwZ623zCXF2zPX@mail.gmail.com>:

Like when Aragorn starts on the paths of the dead bookwise he and his Dunedain are regarded, despite their small size, among the most powerful companies in the area. And then with the dead, he defeats armies in southern Gondor _and_ rallies those people to fight at his command, showing his ability as a king. When he gets to Minas Tirith he is leading an army as great as Rohan instead of a handful and a ship of vapours that would have been laughed at by orcs and ringwraiths. Moviewise he's never more than a nerfherder with ideas above his station stealing Arwen and betraying Elrond.

2016 October 30, Siri Cruise, “Re: Ye olde burbs & rural mythology”, in alt.politics.liberalism (Usenet), retrieved 2017-04-28, message-ID <chine.bleu-371DA6.12162630102016@news.eternal-september.org>:

Hey nerfherder, yeah you! I'm gonna need those for the B-wings!

2017, Rowan's sis, “Trouble on Tibalt”, in LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, season 2, episode 2:

(derogatory, fandom slang) A term of abuse.

20th Century Fox
Carrie Fisher
Lawrence Kasdan
Leigh Brackett
Lucasfilm
Princess Leia
The Empire Strikes Back


Dasher

A Visit from St. Nicholas
Santa Claus's reindeer

From dasher.
* (reindeer): First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

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


Dancer

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

From dancer.
(reindeer): First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”


Prancer

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

First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. From prancer.


Vixen

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

First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. From vixen.


Comet

First attested in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. From comet.

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


holodisc

(science fiction) Alternative form of holodisk


holotape

(science fiction) A tape used as a storage medium for holographic material.


Dr. Strangelove

en-noun

Dr. Strangelove (plural Dr. Strangeloves)

[ˈdɑk̚tɚ ˈʃt͡ʃɹeɪ̯nd͡ʒɫʌv]

From the character Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

When it was important in 1969 for Henry Kissinger to gain a reputation as a “secret swinger” to create a Dr. Strangelove reputation and provide cover for secret trips, he would appeal to White House wags and their friends (Richard Moore, television producer Paul Keyes, and this writer) for lines making that point.

2008, William Safire, Safire's Political Dictionary, →ISBN, page 654:

Just as the central question of the nuclear age was how to keep a Dr. Strangelove from pushing the button, the central question of the geoengineering age will be how to prevent a Dr. Strangelove from hacking the climate.

2010, Jeff Goodell, How to Cool the Planet, →ISBN:

His game theory became the foundation for modern finance. Dr Strangelove went to work on Wall Street.

2015, Katrine Marcal, Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?, →ISBN, page 62:

In both the world of new science and that of quick-fix military technology we need, more than ever, to be on perpetual guard against the Dr Strangeloves of the future.

2012, Dr J Richardson, War, Science and Terrorism: From Laboratory to Open Conflict, →ISBN:

The Darth Vaders, Dr. Strangeloves and many people in positions of power have advocated the use of nuclear weapons to resolve conflicts.

2014, Jerry Kroth, Implosion: Delusion, denial, and the prospect of collapse, →ISBN, page 240:

But CIA observers everywhere choked when CNN announced that a psychological trauma team, mustered by the American Psychological Association, would converge in Oklahoma City to treat survivors of the explosion and the victims' families—led by none other than Dr. Louis Jolyon West of UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, the breeding ground of some of the most necrotizing Dr. Strangeloves in the mind control business.

2014, Alex Constantine, Virtual Government: CIA Mind Control Operations in America, →ISBN, page 255:

Someone who is likely to launch a nuclear attack or otherwise destroy the world.


atoothfairyist

From a- + tooth fairy + -ist, based on atheist.

(very rare, humorous) A person who does not believe in the tooth fairy.


counterfactuality

counterfactuality (countable and uncountable, plural counterfactualities)


two-minute hate

two-minute hate (plural two-minute hates)

From the fictional Two Minutes Hate in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

There were to be no loyalty parades with bleating school children carrying flags down mainstreet while every heart rises ; nor were there to be pictures of the enemy showing him with claws, fangs, or tusks to induce our two-minute hates

The contrast between the two eras is clever and effective, and, with the Great Depression still chugging along at the time of the story's first publication, contemporary readers suffering that debacle's effects would have had no trouble working up a good two-minute hate for the too-comfortable Contents.

2005, Grant Burns, The Railroad in American Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography, McFarland, →ISBN, page 94:

Again, there is talk of America's “lost innocence,” and the ritual two-minute hate once reserved for so-called “militia sympathizers” and government critics is now directed at Islamic radicals and, by extension, the antiwar movement.

2009, Russ Kick, You Are STILL Being Lied To: The NEW Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths, Red Wheel Weiser, →ISBN:

Periodically they would convene impromptu two-minute hate sessions to compare notes on the arrogance and futility of philosophy and its claims on the territory of AI research.

2012, Giuseppe Mantovani, Exploring Borders: Understanding Culture and Psychology, Routledge, →ISBN, page 113:

Ritualized hatred towards a perceived enemy, especially when encouraged for political reasons.

George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Two Minutes Hate


Homo superior

/ˌhəʊməʊ suːˈpɪəɹi.ə(ɹ)/

From Latin homo superior (literally “superior human”), modeled after New Latin Homo sapiens (literally “wise human”). Coined by Olaf Stapledon in his 1935 novel Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest.

der

Homo Superior faced the little mob of Homo Sapiens, and it was immediately evident that Homo Superior was indeed the better man.

Magneto: "The first phase of my plan shall be to show my power... to make Homo sapiens bow to Homo superior!"

1963 September 10, Stan Lee, “X-Men”, in The X-Men, volume 1, number 1, page 11:

You gotta make way¶ for the Homo Superior

1971, “Oh! You Pretty Things”, in Hunky Dory, performed by David Bowie:

(science fiction) The evolutionary step beyond Homo sapiens.


my spider sense is tingling

From Marvel Comics' "Spider-Man" comic books, in which the main character (Spider-Man) has a superpower called "spider sense" (sometimes called spidey sense) that would forewarn him about dangerous events. He would often say his spider sense was "tingling" when it was warning him of something.

(colloquial) My intuition (spider sense) tells me that something wrong or dangerous is happening or about to happen.


man in black

Coordinate term: black helicopter

Ever since the cessation of activity by Albert Bender in 1954, and followed closely by a few others, whose disappear[a]nce though less spectacular, from this field of work, caused a stir among the then active workers; the words he used in reference to his case "that he had been visited by three men in black, who demanded that he cease his investigations" left many to conjecture as to who they were, and what was their reason and who they represented.

1958, The Australian Saucer Record, volume 4, number 4, page 1:

Often they arrive at the scene of a UFO landing before those involves have had a chance to tell their story to the authorities, indicating that these Men-in-Black can read – as well as CONTROL – minds.

1991 March 26, John A. Keel, “Who are the UFO silencers?”, in Weekly World News, volume 12, number 25, page 8:

In many UFO sightings in which evidence of the sighting is claimed to exist, government "men in black" are reported to appear at the witnesses' doors demanding the evidence and threatening witnesses in the event they divulge any information regarding their sighting.

1995, James L. Thompson, Alien encounters: the deception menace, Cedar Fort, page 52:

Stories of “men-in-black,” who confront those who have witnessed a UFO with the intention of persuading them to keep their knowledge of space creatures a secret, are also amenable to folkloristic analysis.

1995, John A. Saliba, “UFO Contactee Phenomena from a Sociopsychological Perspective: A Review”, in The Gods have landed: new religions from other worlds, SUNY Press, page 218:

(ufology) A covert government operative, wearing a black suit and black aviator sunglasses, believed by conspiracy theorists to cover up UFO incidents.


half-witch

(fantasy) A female hybrid of magical and non-magical parents.


half-wizard

(fantasy) A male hybrid of magical and non-magical parents.


half-human

Any hybrid of a human and some other creature.


Wakanda

Most likely borrowed from Omaha-Ponca Wakanda, Chiwere Wakanda, Kansa Wakanda, Osage Wakanda.

The supreme being or Great Spirit of the Osage, but also Omaha, Caddo and Ponca peoples of North America.


Wakanda

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966. Most likely influenced by Bantu-language names like Uganda and Rwanda.

(science fiction) A fictional wealthy country located somewhere in Africa that is the setting of several Marvel Comics arcs.


reverse mermaid

en-noun

reverse mermaid (plural reverse mermaids)

(cryptozoology) A mythical creature, woman from the waist down, fish from the waist up.


Bat-

Originally of the nature of a noun adjunct forming compound nouns, first bat + man = the batman or the Bat-Man = Batman, then later bat-phone = Bat-phone, bat-signal = Bat-signal, and so on.

Holy unsafe sex, Batman! Did you forget to use your Bat-condom?

2002 October 27, Richard B. Becker, “Re: The most implausible thing about BoP (no spoilers)”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.universe (Usenet), message-ID <3DBCA45A.F8B8C1AF@mindspring.com>:

Belonging to or associated with Batman; sometimes said of bat-themed objects used by him.


Draculaesque

en-adj

Draculaesque (comparative more Draculaesque, superlative most Draculaesque)

more Draculaesque (comparative)
most Draculaesque (superlative)

Reminiscent of the fictional vampire Count Dracula.


MLP

abbreviation of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic


imaginative fiction

Particular professors and sober Scotchmen may denounce as childish the desire for imaginative fiction.

1914 March 7, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, All-Story Weekly, Letters:

The questions of whether Esperanto has any place in the science fiction field and whether there is any justification for the modification of the English language for the convenience of the imaginative fiction reader, seem both to be issues on which there can be little in the way of a compromise.

1936 December 13, Maurice K. Hanson, “Editorial”, in Novae Terrae, volume 1, number 9, page 3:

A Journal for Readers, Writers and Collectors of Imaginative Fiction

1947 February 13 – March 13, “Masthead”, in Fantasy Review, volume 1, number 1, page 2:

Fiction not based on reality; a class of fiction including but not necessarily limited to fantasy, horror and science fiction.


Pokémon Goer

Pokémon Goers were invited to enter the museum at a discounted rate and search for Pokémon characters.

2016 July 19, Kora Chrzan, “Pokémon Go takes off in the Ozarks”, in Branson Tri-Lakes News:

A Pokémon Goer is on the app for an average of 26 minutes,

2016 August 29, Ricardo Casas, “Catching Customers: Pokémon Go and the Future of Local Advertising”, in Business:

Getting into the theme of love, perhaps the most exciting thing for Pokémon Goers is a huge increase in the duration of lures: the Pokémon-attracting devices will now last a whole six hours, 12 times longer than their standard 30-minute duration.

2017 February 8, Alex Hern, “Pokémon Go launches Valentine's event hoping to lure loving players”, in The Guardian:

Pokémon Goers explore White Sands National Monument

2017 April 7, Tara Melton, “White Sands celebrates historic visitation numbers”, in Alamogordo Daily News:

Brace yourselves, Pokémon Goers - Legendary Pokémon Raikou, Entei, and Suicune are coming your way!

2017 September 4, Vikki Blake, “Here's How To Catch Pokemon Go's Three New Legendary Pokemon”, in MTV UK:


timequake

Or you can have a revisable universe with one timeline (see Hogan's Thrice Upon a Time or Milennium^([sic]) by (I think) Joe Haldeman for the general idea) and in which your actions can "rewrite" the past from that point on. Here, if you shoot your grandfather, you generate a "timequake" in which something ugly happens. Probably you disappear, but there may be other side-effects as the universe works it out, which is, I think, what you are reffering^([sic]) to as the "great expense".

1996 November 16, Mike Abernathy, “Re: faster than light travel”, in sci.physics.electromag (Usenet), message-ID <56la8t$5@sjx-ixn2.ix.netcom.com>:

Finding herself in the middle of a “timequake,” she discovers another world—an alternate universe. Will Mary find a way to return to the world she left?

2008, Deanna J. McDaniel, Gentle Reads: Great Books to Warm Hearts and Lift Spirits, Grades 5-9, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 217:

(science fiction) A disturbance in the flow of time.


munchkinism

Munchkinism is similar to "Monty Haul" gaming; however it involves playing at incredible power levels purely for the sake of watching the terrain get blown away by player characters who are unstoppable. Munchkinism also involves "rules rape," wherein players milk every advantage out of the rules. Often a munchkin will carry a favorite character from game to game, usually with the maximum allowable ability scores, skill ratings, etc - and enough hardware/magic to destroy the planet four times over.

1993 February 22, Magnus, “What is Munchkinism? What does the Wizard of Oz have to do with roleplaying games?”, in (Usenet):

(roleplaying games) A playing style that concentrates on increasing one's character's power and capabilities.


Alpha Centaurian

en-noun

Alpha Centaurian (plural Alpha Centaurians)

(science fiction) A native or inhabitant of Alpha Centauri.


superman punch

superman punch (plural superman punches)

Probably from Superman, a comic-book superhero with superhuman strength and speed.

mixed martial arts
mixed martial arts#English

A technique used in Muay Thai, Sanshou, kickboxing, ITF-style taekwondo and mixed martial arts, which involves bringing the rear leg forward to feign a kick, then snapping the leg back while throwing a cross, resulting in greater power behind the punch.


science faction

Blend of science fiction + science fact.


Winesburg

Originally named Weinsberg in 1829, after the town in Germany. It was renamed to Winesburg by postal authorities in 1833 when a post office was opened there.
The fictional town came from the name of the actual Ohio town.

(fiction) The town, named after the Holmes County town of the same name, but otherwise based on Clyde, Ohio, that serves as the setting of the novel Winesburg, Ohio.


neurotronic

(science fiction) Combining neural and electronic technologies.


stasis lock

Tec had already deepened the stasis in Uru's cage to keep him asleep, and now he put the ship in a stasis lock.

1976, J. O. Jeppson, Second Experiment, page 29:

I am speaking to the eight ships on the dessert on the planet Vood, which are now in energy stasis locks. I am representative of the Maitan Empire fleet, who have you under surveillance.

(machinery, especially science fiction) An induced state of suspension or inactivity.


chick magnet

When he walks his dog the girls all want to pet it – it's a real chick magnet.

(US, colloquial) Something that tends to get the attention of women, especially young women.


GEQ

Maybe after we released the Rune of Death from Maliketh, the GEQ got her full powers back.

Does this mean that the Godskins and the GEQ once had the Elden Ring?

We know that the GEQ was beat by Maliketh and Destined Death was reclaimed by him.

(Elden Ring fandom slang) Initialism of Gloam-Eyed Queen (a minor character in the game's backstory).


felinoid

(science fiction) A member of a cat-like alien race.


Three Laws of Robotics

Coined by American science fiction author Isaac Asimov in 1942, introduced in his short story "Runaround".

coin

(science fiction, robotics) A set of rules governing the behavior of robots.


future history

en-noun

future history (countable and uncountable, plural future histories)

(countable) A postulated history of the future that is used by authors in the subgenre of science fiction to construct a common background for fiction.

(the speaker is a time traveller from the future) Well, lad, I would tell you more, but that's just future history that you must figure out on your own.

(uncountable, chiefly science fiction, often humorous) Future events perceived or analyzed chronologically, as compared to history.


Eevolution

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Eevolution.


jann

jann (plural janns or jinnan or jawan or jinn or jinnah)

janns (plural)
jinnan (plural)
jawan (plural)
jinn (plural)
jinnah (plural)

(rare, mythology) One of the jinn; a genie.


First Law of Robotics

Three Laws of Robotics
Three Laws of Robotics

(science fiction, robotics) One of the Three Laws of Robotics, forbidding a robot to harm a human, through either action or inaction.


Second Law of Robotics

First Law of Robotics
First Law of Robotics

(science fiction, robotics) One of the Three Laws of Robotics, requiring a robot to obey humans, unless it would conflict with the First Law of Robotics (which forbids a robot to harm a human).


Third Law of Robotics

(science fiction, robotics) One of the Three Laws of Robotics, requiring a robot to protect its own existence, as long as this does not conflict with the First Law (which forbids a robot to harm a human) or the Second Law (which requires robots to obey humans).


Baskervillean

en-adj

Baskervillean (comparative more Baskervillean, superlative most Baskervillean)

more Baskervillean (comparative)
most Baskervillean (superlative)

From Baskerville + -an, in reference to Arthur Conan Doyle's crime novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (published 1901-1902).

I entered and rang the bell, which was answered first by a Baskervillean baying, and in due course by Mrs Healey herself.

2015, Ceri Houlbrook, Natalie Armitage, The Materiality of Magic: An artifactual investigation into ritual practices and popular beliefs:

Characteristic of a fearsome, diabolical dog.


Belly of the Whale

Coined by Joseph Campbell in 1949. Probably an allusion to the book of Jonah in the Bible, in which Jonah was swallowed by a great fish.

A story element which represents the final separation from a hero's known world and self.


Skate

But 'Skate' fans ended the series quite disappointed in him, as it seems that even after leaving with Kate, they couldn't be together.

2010, Robert Dougherty, Lost: It Only Ends Once: An Unofficial Last Look, page 294:

(I've never subscribed to either of the Kate ships on the show, but even I was almost a Skate convert in that moment.)

2010, Nikki Stafford, Finding Lost, Season Six, unnumbered page:

And while, as a Skate fan, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that my side of the love square ultimately didn't win out (Sawyer ended up with Juliet, Jack ended up with Kate), I have to say I adored this small scene between my couple!

2015, James O'Ehley, Erin Willard, editors, The Take2 Guide to Lost: The Ultimate Compendium, unnumbered page:

(fandom slang) The ship of characters James "Sawyer" Ford and Kate Austen from the television series Lost.


people pod

If you believe your Sunday papers. the answer is supposed to be "people pods in pneumatic tubes."

These little cars are called people pods. Each one has seats for two to four people. To ride in a people pod, you first buy a ticket from a computer. You push buttons on the computer to tell it where you want to go. You put the ticket in a slot in the small computer on the people pod. The computer then controls your ride along tracks under the city. When you get out of the people pod, or out of the parking building, you go up to the street.

1974, Margaret Early, Gwendolyn Kerr, Judith Busch, Ring around the world, →ISBN, pages 256–257:

'Yeah, and conveying themselves round in those cryonic selfdrive people pods.

2011, Chloe Rayban, Terminal Chic, →ISBN:

A people pod—a bi-rail system where each person gets into his or her own pod or car.

2012, James L. Lowther, The Group, →ISBN:

And now, much like the linear accelerators he designed to push his theoretical people pods, Musk is planning to encourage forward movement on more Hyperloop designs.

2015 June 15, Amanda Schupak, “Elon Musk to build Hyperloop test track in California”, in CBS News:

(science fiction or futurism) Any of various cars for carrying a small number of people as part of a public transportation system.


salesbot

(science fiction) A robot designed to sell goods or services.


Sol system

Alliance Officer: This is a galaxy-wide alert for all human territories. Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett has declared Threat Condition Saber One.
Alliance Officer: Enemy presence confirmed in Sol system. Earth under Reaper attack. I say again: Reaper attack is underway.
Alliance Officer: [Static.] ...further instructions to follow on coded channel Crimson Tacit.
Alliance Officer: May God save us. [Static.]

2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Alliance S.O.S.:


romaction

Let's combine the action and the romance and make a romaction story.

2008, 52:48 from the start, in Bedtime Stories:

One wag has already named the offspring of this shotgun wedding: romaction.

2010 July 6, “How movies became love, camera, action”, in The Sydney Morning Herald:

Like the “romaction” genre that fuses relationships and car crashes (think “Date Night” and “Knight and Day”), hard-R comedies like “The Hangover,” “Bad Teacher” and last year’s “Ted” appeal both to young women and their male companions, a “two-quadrant” win that made studio suits swoon.

2013 June 20, Ann Hornaday, “Why the rom-com is almost extinct”, in The Washington Post:

They reject his suggestion, asking instead to hear a story of action and romance. Skeeter then tells them a "romaction story" about Ancient Greece featuring Skeetacus, the inventor of the X Games.

2013, Amie A. Doughty, "Throw the book away": Reading versus Experience in Children's Fantasy:


over nine thousand

From episode 28 of the anime TV series Dragon Ball Z ("Goku's Arrival", 1997), referring to Goku's increase in power level.

(humorous, Internet slang, idiomatic) Off the charts; through the roof (beyond expectations).

List of Dragon Ball Z episodes (season 1)


jiangshi

/d͡ʒiˌɑŋˈʃiː/

/d͡ʒiˌæŋˈʃiː/

Borrowed from Mandarin 殭屍／僵尸 (jiāngshī).

A reanimated corpse in Chinese legend, which moves around by hopping with its arms outstretched, and kills living creatures to absorb their life force.


participant evolution

(usually science fiction) The use of technology in a way expected to change the course of human evolution.


reverse harem

So called because a traditional harem involves one man and multiple women.

A situation in anime and manga in which a woman is the love interest of three or more men.


tubeway

As usual, he relished the order and tidiness of the Complex; the sterile unscented air, the empty white tubeways, the featureless blocks and cubes that lined the outer walls.

The piezoelectric pedestrian tubeways depicted for Shanghai 2121 will provide all-weather pedestrian transportation citywide.

2016, Alan Marshall, Ecotopia 2121: A Vision for Our Future Green Utopia in 100 Cities:

(science fiction) A system of interlinked tubes serving as a transport network.


twintail

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

From twin + tail. Sense 2 is a calque of Japanese ツインテール (tsuintēru).

(fandom slang, chiefly anime and manga) Either of a pair of unbraided tails worn on the sides of the head; an unbraided pigtail.

(in the plural) A hairstyle with a pair of twintails; unbraided pigtails.


be a hundred years too early

head

be a hundred years too early (irregular; see conjugation of "be")

Calque of Japanese 百年早い (hyaku-nen hayai).

cal

Don't make me waste my time! You are a hundred years too early to be an opponent worthy of fighting me!

(idiomatic, anime and manga fandom slang) To be so immature and unprepared as to have no hope of achieving an accomplishment.


newshawk

You didn’t have to peek out the door to know who was tearing her heart out in the street, keening over her dead brother even while the cops and newshawks were on their way.

(informal) A keen investigative reporter.


R+L=J

This is particularly true of the “R+L=J” phenomenon, the theory that Jon Snow is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, which is commonplace on “Westeros.org,” “Tower of the Hand,” and other sites of online fandom.

2015, Andrew Howe, "The Hand of the Artist: Fan Art in the Martinverse", in Mastering the Game of Thrones: Essays on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (eds. Jes Battis & Susan Johnston), page 250

R+L=J: This is a heavily supported theory that has been referenced in the books.

2015 March, Ford Maddox Brown, “The Hand of the King”, in Starburst Magazine, page 21:

Still, this evidence was strong enough that R+L=J was the default theory for most readers, to the point where some believed that the strongest evidence against it was that it was too obvious.

2017, Rowan Kaiser, 100 Things Game of Thrones Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, page 102

(fandom slang) The theory that the character Jon Snow, initially presented in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones as the bastard son of Ned Stark by an unknown woman, is actually a secret child born of the union of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.


robopocalypse

It's not about that, Dante. It's about surviving. Pre-emptive measures to make sure we don't even get close to a robopocalypse.

2014, Anissa Belkadi, Miniature Mausoleums, page 279:

(science fiction, technology) An apocalypse (ending of the world) caused chiefly by robots.


solrise

(rare, science fiction) The time of day when Sol, the sun in the Solar System, appears to rise over a planet's horizon.


weregorilla

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can assume the form of a gorilla.


weredonkey

“Werehorse,” Gettyson said curtly. “There's no such things as weredonkeys.”

2011, Anthony Francis, “Blood Rock”, in The Skindancer Series, volume 2, Bell Bridge Books, →ISBN, page 36:

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can assume the form of a donkey.


weregoat

In the confusion, I manage to squeeze free between a mountain weregoat wrestling with a pygmy weremammoth and a Yoshi.

2015, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Feral Pride, Candlewick Press:

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can assume the form of a goat.


weremammoth

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can assume the form of a mammoth.


continued page 94

Used by Private Eye to abruptly end over-running articles and rants – the magazine never ran to 94 pages.

Yes the CIA has got a really big computer and lots of equations, and they screw up really well: Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iran, continued page 94.

1996 August 24, Chris Whittington, “What I mean by solved”, in rec.games.chess.computer (Usenet):

While I have no interest in opera, fishing, the Church of England...(list continued page 94), I know that many other people do, and I tend to let them get on with it, without complaining about the "poisonous torrents" of things I don't like.

1999 January 7, Tim Hall, “Just tell us... Gary Richardson”, in uk.media.radio.bbc-r4 (Usenet):

Re-filming? When did that start? In my day we did it all in one take, with no chance of covering up embarrassing fluffs or other antics. But then Mr Gascoigne was _such_ a professional. Not like that journalist chappie that they have these days. Oh, and we had to win 3 times just to get through to the second round. Young people today just don't know they're (cont p.94)

2001 March 20, Stephen, “Linham Strikes Again”, in uk.media.radio.archers (Usenet):

Let's face it: a man whose snappy one-liners usually include the phrase "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (continued on page 94)" isn't going to be giving Nora Ephron any sleepless nights.

2002 January 25, Alan Hope, “Space: The Line That Never Was But Should Have Been”, in misc.writing.screenplays (Usenet):

Predicted reply from David: 'Ian Pace, idealist that he is, uses terms like "imperialism" as reified concepts without giving any clear description of what he means. Just like "capitalism" or "fascism" or "truth". These are just free-floating concepts which have no basis in reality. I prefer to look at the reality of what's actually going on in the world. (rant continued on page 94)'

2006 January 15, Ian Pace, “Mahler #6”, in rec.music.classical.recordings (Usenet):

Some people enjoy being hard done by, but are cursed by nothing much to complain about, so they're forced to invent things like how you're 'not allowed' to say 'queer' any more, but it's double standards because they use the word themselves and... (continued page 94)

2015 February 2, Syd Rumpo, “Coming Out”, in uk.media.radio.archers (Usenet):

Indicates that the text could continue indefinitely; and so on ad infinitum.


Korrasami

Not only did the creators openly confirm that the ending was intended — and Korrasami shippers aren't just reading too much between the lines — a ton of artwork has been created and sold to benefit LGBTQ suicide prevention.

2015, Nick Havey, "Bisexual stereotypes need to go bi bi bi", The Daily Wildcat (Arizona University), Volume 108, Issue 119, 25 March 2015, page 4

The redeeming feature of Korrasami (as the pairing has become known among fans) is that the show's producers very clearly stated that both characters are bisexual and definitely in a relationship.

2018, Kate Harrad, editor, Claiming the B in LGBT: Illuminating the Bisexual Narrative, unnumbered page:

While the “Korrasami” pairing was confirmed at the ending, fans desired to see more and engaged in slash activities to portray the relationship.

2018, Nicolle Lamerichs, “When Production Is Over: Creating Narrative Closure in Fan Edits”, in Rebecca Williams, editor, Everybody Hurts: Transitions, Endings, and Resurrections in Fan Cultures, page 147:

(fandom slang) The ship of characters Korra and Asami from the animated series Avatar: Legend of Korra.


transcosmic

That shriek, and Noyes’s still-unbroken snore, are the last sounds I ever heard in that morbidity-choked farmhouse beneath the black-wooded crest of haunted mountain—that focus of transcosmic horror amidst the lonely green hills and curse-muttering brooks of a spectral rustic land.

1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 8, in The Whisperer in Darkness:

(science fiction, religion) Across or beyond the cosmos.


Gaang

Avatar: The Last Airbender
w:Avatar: The Last Airbender

(fandom slang) A fan nickname for Aang and his friends in Avatar: The Last Airbender.


Mane Six

(fandom slang) A fan nickname for the six main characters in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Mane Five

My Little Pony: A New Generation or G5 main characters


OITNB

Orange Is the New Black
w:Orange Is the New Black

Initialism of Orange Is the New Black. (television series)


shared universe

en-noun

shared universe (plural shared universes)

A fictional universe encompassing multiple separate works of fiction.


DCAU

DC Animated Universe
w:en:DC Animated Universe

(fandom slang) Initialism of DC Animated Universe (“a shared universe centered on DC Comics-based TV animation beginning in the 1990s”).


TBBT

The Big Bang Theory
w:The Big Bang Theory

(television) Initialism of The Big Bang Theory, an American television sitcom.


Smallville

(fiction) A fictional small town, frequently representing a backwater place of origin, usually a rural farming community in the United States


HIMYM

How I Met Your Mother
w:How I Met Your Mother

(television) Initialism of How I Met Your Mother, a US sitcom first aired in 2005.


dayshield

From day + shield. Compare also Old English dæġsċeald (“dayshield, screen”) of identical formation.

cog

The lamps overhead were beginning to dim; in a few minutes, the dayshields would slide back, revealing the transparent canopy and allowing the remote suns to peer in—dispassionate observers hidden behind the veils of distance.

Caleb continued to hold his gaze until the familiar grating of the dayshields lowering diverted his attention back over to the terrace doors.

The shelter of the day-shield moved across the heavens; the wise Lord had covered over the path of the sun with a sail in such a way that men dwelling on earth could not detect the mast-ropes, […]

2013, Samantha Zacher, Rewriting the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon Verse:

“They used it but they had better weapons. Sunblades, lightspears, dayshields, armour made from sungold. They picked up the knowledge from the Angels of the Sun when they warred against the Old Ones in the Dawn Ages of the World.”

(chiefly science fiction, fantasy) A protection from daylight; a screen


zombie apocalypse

en-noun

zombie apocalypse (plural zombie apocalypses)

(horror) A large-scale zombie outbreak associated with the collapse of society.


bioplague

(science fiction) A biologically engineered plague.


funny animal

A cartoon animal that is anthropomorphic and behaves like a human, for example by speaking, walking upright, wearing clothing, driving a car, etc.


planetary engineering

The manipulation of a planet's environment to create a new environment.


slannish

en-adj

slannish (comparative more slannish, superlative most slannish)

more slannish (comparative)
most slannish (superlative)

To err is human and slannish too, / But we can correct our mistakes with u.

1944, John Bristol Speer, Fancyclopedia, Obliterine:

It had been said that First Fandom arose around 1930 when the first fans of Brooklyn crawled out of the slime and extended slannish tendrils to one another across the ooze of the Hudson River.

1991 November 13, Bob Tucker, “In the Tradition of Ephless Elmer”, in Science-Fiction Five-Yearly, number 9, page 7:

Does resisting the avalanche of advertising take a slannish mind? No, just an intelligent one, and you know the advertisers are counting on the less intelligent minds so they can make a living

2006 March 28, Lloyd Penney, “[Letter]”, in And furthermore..., number 3, page 6:

(dated, fandom slang) Like a science fiction fan; characteristic of or pertaining to a science fiction fan.


energon

/ˈɛnəɹd͡ʒɒn/

At the natural next step the man is not there either, but has been replaced by his constituent electrons and, I suppose, some vitons, energons, and one personalitron.

1938, Quarterly Review: A Journal of University Perspectives:

But if almost all energy of a material photon is contained within the copulons between its energons rather than in the energons themselves, this means that it loses its structure: the energons are barely still anything more than hollow sacks […]

2007, Niels Vandamme, Tempest - the Transition, page 153:

(science fiction) A proposed form of energetic particle.


plasticrete

(science fiction) A durable construction material.


PMV

en-noun

PMV (countable and uncountable, plural PMVs)

On the other side, there are thousands of pony videos on sites like Youtube,^([sic]) including mashups with movies, fan-made show-quality animations with original voice acting, and Pony Music Videos or “PMVs” which sync up clips from the show with popular music.

2013 April, Peter Berg, “My Little Pony takes Internet by storm”, in Young D.C., archived from the original on 2013-12-09, page 7:

For Chris, this problem was not resolved through disassociating from fandom, but rather through fan content itself. Browsing pony music videos (PMVs) on YouTube, he recalled that ‘one of the PMVs actually had a Christian song under it, which literally had the message: ‘“Even if you can’t . . . Even if you can’t bring me anything thenI still don’t look down on you and love you”. And I could only hear that because I was watching PMVs.’

2019, Andrew Crome, “Cosplay in the pulpit and ponies at prayer: Christian faith and lived religion in wider fan culture”, in Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal, volume 20, number 2, page 139:

I am a PMV artist that has won several PMV contests from various conventions such as BronyCon, contributed in many ways to the PMV sub-community, and have worked with the likes of Sawtooth Waves and Ponies the Anthology.

2021, Daspacepony, Midair Pony Fair: Con Book:

Initialism of pony music video. (A fan-made music video of clips from My Little Pony animated cartoon TV shows).


tragic heroine

(drama) A heroine who suffers from a tragic flaw that eventually causes her downfall; a female tragic hero.