carplane

Outside Bedrock headed for a carplane stop in a meditative mood.

1951, Alfred Elton Van Vogt, The weapon shops of Isher:

Unlike some other fictional portrayals of future family life — which simply place traditional family structures in a high-tech futuristic setting of carplanes, fully automated appliances, interplanetary civilizations, and robot servants […]

2002, David M. Newman, Elizabeth Grauerholz, Sociology of families:

The sides of the carplane will open by moving slowly down under the floor of the car. There won't be any maps and we'll never get lost because carplanes will always know where to go.

2009, Caroline Nixon, Michael Tomlinson, Kid's Box 6 Pupil's Book, Volume 6:

(science fiction) A vehicle that can drive on land like a car or fly like an aeroplane.


sidebox

(typography) A box placed alongside the main text in a book, etc. containing further related text.


telescreen

From tele- + screen, from television. Popularized by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), in which they are used for government surveillance of citizens.

Too many millions of people, watching their telescreens, had seen his unpardonable arrogance.

1973, Robert Theobald, Stephanie Mills, The failure of success: ecological values vs. economic myths:

She pushed buttons at a new, small oval kind of telescreen, quickly gathering together the high-level authorizations it had taken hours of preparation to collect.

2002, Teresa Plowright, Dreams of an Unseen Planet:

(science fiction) A screen for broadcasting television or similar media.


bodynet

From body + net, in the sense of network.

Think of yourself on some evening in the not-so-distant future, when wearable, fitted, and implanted electronic organs connected by bodynets are as commonplace as cotton […]

1996, William J. Mitchell, City of bits: space, place, and the infobahn:

A cathedral of light, if you will, of prefabricated carbon-fiber and lightweight synthetic thermal resins; equipped with stereo-immersive walls and motion sensors that respond via a bodynet to my ever shifting loci of desires and needs […]

1998, John Beckmann, The virtual dimension: architecture, representation, and crash culture:

With this technology, in the near future, people can participate in parties without leaving the house, needing only to dress in a bodynet (clothe^([sic]) with sensors).

2008, Julio Francisco Dantas de Rezende, Transpersonal Management: lessons from the Matrix trilogy:

(science fiction) An array of technology attached to the body.


test card

In 1967, the BBC needed a ‘test card’ for its new colour broadcasts, to be put on the screen when programmes were not being transmitted so engineers could adjust the quality of the picture.

2013, Chris McManus, Right Hand, Left Hand, Hachette, →ISBN:

(UK, television) A test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no programme is being broadcast (often at startup and closedown).


chromakey

en-noun

chromakey (countable and uncountable, plural chromakeys)

(television, film) The use of a particular color, usually either green or blue) as a key in a studio in order to allow one image to be seamlessly partially superimposed upon another.

croma

use of a color as key in a studio to allow an image to be partially replaced by other one


produceorial

en-adj

produceorial (comparative more produceorial, superlative most produceorial)

more produceorial (comparative)
most produceorial (superlative)

I'm always just trying to get direct access to an audience, without having to go through the media hoops, or even theproduceorial hoops

2003, Kathleen Gallagher, “A dialogue with Ann-Marie MacDonald”, in How theatre educates: convergences and counterpoints with artists, scholars and advocates, University of Toronto Press, page 251:

(film, theater) Of or pertaining to a producer; concerned with production


producorial

producorial (comparative more producorial, superlative most producorial)

more producorial (comparative)
most producorial (superlative)

/ˌpɹɒd(j)ʊˈsɔːɹɪəl/

* from producer, after directorial from director

"We don't plan to act in it," Mr. Affleck says. "Our role is producorial."
Producorial?
"It's like professorial except it requires no accreditation, no intelligence and no actual expertise, which is why we qualify."

2000 September 10, Franz Lidz, “Ben Affleck Shocker: I Bargained With Devil for Fame”, in New York Times:

I have partners that I've worked with for over 30 years that sort of deal with all the more producorial roles in the film.

2007 April 12, Ivan Reitman, “interview with Ryan Parsons”, in CanMag, archived from the original on 2010-02-13:

(film) Of or pertaining to a producer; concerned with production (of a film)


expositionary

expositionary (comparative more expositionary, superlative most expositionary)

more expositionary (comparative)
most expositionary (superlative)


cavorite

From Cavor + -ite. First used in 1901 in The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. It was named after the fictional Dr. Cavor. The initial use was capitalized, but later authors borrowing the concept sometimes changed it to lowercase.
In the first use, the metal acted as a gravity shield; after the metal was cooled, objects contained within it were no longer subject to gravity. Some later uses, e.g., Alan Moore's, imagine the substance to simply have a negative gravitational mass.

“It seems to me it wouldn't cost much to cart any weight anywhere if you packed it in a Cavorite case.”

1901, H. G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon, Chapter 3:

“In the early years, they were the most primitive structures ever to fly in space, cheap and overbuilt and overcrewed, hoisted on cavorite wings.”

1999, Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky, reprinted by Macmillan, published 2000, →ISBN, page 760:

(science fiction) A hypothetical substance with anti-gravity effects.


multireel

Since then she has created a variety of multireel stories she calls Vladmasters, which she sells and presents in public performances.

2007 May 13, Rob Walker, “Toy Story”, in New York Times:


vacat

Unadapted borrowing from Latin vacat (“it is empty”).

ubor

(palaeography) Indicates a willingly empty portion of an inscription.


brevier

Probably from Old French or Anglo-Norman *brevier, from Latin breviārium (“breviary”), presumably from its use in printing them. Most breviaries were not, however, printed with such small type, leading some to conjecture that it instead derived from cognates of brief and has a meaning similar to French petit and German Petit.

(typography, printing, dated) The size of type between minion and bourgeois, standardized as 8-point.


white knight

(fiction) A hero, savior, or righteous individual.


chronoclasm

From Ancient Greek χρόνος (khrónos, “time”), and κλάστης (klástēs, “a person who breaks something”); from κλάω (kláō, “break”).

(science fiction) An interference with the course of history caused by time travel.


antepenultima

From Latin antepaenultima, antepenultima (“antepenultimate”); feminine gender, agreeing with syllaba (“syllable”)).

(poetry) The last syllable of a word except two


medscanner

He knelt beside Crusher and watched, briefly useless, as she passed her medscanner over the body. Except that it wasn't a body.

1997, Diane Duane, Intellivore, page 102:

Deep wounds in his chest were seeping blood, and the medscanner Tacitus had pressed against his neck showed his vital signs on the wane.

(science fiction, chiefly Star Trek) A portable device capable of scanning a patient to diagnose sickness or injury.


anti-story

(literature) A work of fiction in which the author breaks in some way the conventional rules of storytelling, usually with some feature (for example, a lack of plot or characters, unusual punctuation, odd subject or presentation, etc.) that strongly challenges the reader's expectations.


TNG

Star Trek: The Next Generation
w:Star Trek: The Next Generation

(television) Initialism of Star Trek: The Next Generation.


hyperjump

(science fiction) A jump that transports some physical object immediately from one place to another, as by a hyperdrive or jump drive.


jump drive

(USB flash drive): A trademark name of flash drives owned by Lexar.

(science fiction) A means of travelling faster than light by jumping from one point to another in space.


scriptor

From Latin scrīptor, to avoid the etymological link between author and authority.

Although this literary exercise has been used to question the validity of Drew's book, the little biographies he offered acquire a worthy literary dimension if read using Foucault's critique to the Barthesian scriptor.

2021, Vicent Cucarella Ramon, Benjamin Drew: The Refugee. Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada, page 44:

(literature) A writer, regarded as producing a work but not as providing its explanation (which is instead determined by the reader), according to the theories of Roland Barthes.


roughie

Wishman's film is typically classified as a roughie within sexploitation cinema.

2021, Rashna Wadia Richards, Cinematic TV: Serial Drama Goes to the Movies, page 97:

(film, slang) A film portraying rough sex.


standfirst

The standfirst talked of “Jubilation as article 50 is finally served”.

2017 March 30, Jon Henley, Jane Martinson, The Guardian:

(UK, journalism) Explanatory text under the main heading of a news article, smaller than the heading but still larger than the main text.


starfaring

From star + faring, modelled on seafaring.

The Migrant Fleet is the largest concentration of starfaring vessels in the galaxy, sprawling across millions of kilometers. It can take days for the entire fleet to pass through a mass relay.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Quarians: Migrant Fleet Codex entry:

(science fiction) Travelling among the stars.


readback

Deverbal from read back, as in read that back to me, please.

OK, now let's do a readback before you send this off.

The judge ordered a readback of a portion of the testimony.

(dictation, stenography) The reading aloud by a transcriptionist, court reporter, or stenographer of draft correspondence or of testimony previously taken down in dictation, usually at the request of the presiding judge or parties involved in a deposition (courtroom contexts) or of the manager dictating the correspondence (business contexts).


effective radiated power

en-noun

effective radiated power (countable and uncountable, plural effective radiated powers)

(radio) the energy of a radio frequency, determined by multiplying the transmitter power output with the antenna gain.


single-sideband modulation

single-sideband modulation (countable and uncountable, plural single-sideband modulations)

amplitude modulation
amplitude modulation

(radio) A modification of amplitude modulation that modulates the output signal on a single sideband only, as opposed to both sidebands.


height above average terrain

height above average terrain (plural heights above average terrain)

(radio) The height of a radio transmitter, including the antenna, as compared to the average terrain height in the surrounding area between three and sixteen kilometers from the antenna site.


co-channel interference

co-channel interference (plural co-channel interferences)

(radio) interference caused by two stations transmitting on the same frequency


paizuri

paizuri (countable and uncountable, plural paizuri or paizuris)

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

Borrowed from Japanese パイ擦(ず)り (paizuri), a blend of オッパイ (oppai, “titty”) + 擦(す)り (suri, “rubbing”).


Chekhov's gun

Calque of Russian Чеховское ружьё (Čexovskoje ružʹjó). The principle was articulated by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov and reported in various forms.

cal

Чеховское ружьё

It seems like a violation of Chekhov’s gun rule to put Naomi Campbell in the first act and not have her throw a phone at someone in the third. (She tore up a check instead.)

2015 March 19, Alessandra Stanley, “'Empire' Finale Review: A Sizzling End to Season One”, in New York Times:

An on-screen pill bottle works like Chekhov’s gun: Eventually, its contents will be fired at an actor’s mouth, or smashed between his lips, or hurled into his gullet.

2023 May 1, Daniel Engber, “No One in Movies Knows How to Swallow a Pill”, in The Atlantic:

(literature) A dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed.


(software, publishing, typography) PostScript level 3


(software, publishing, typography) Abbreviation of PostScript Level 1.


Undine

From German Undine (“undine”), first used as a given name in the novel Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and in 19th-century operas based on the book.

The child, on the contrary, would by no means listen to this, declaring she had been called Undine by her parents, and Undine she would still be called. Now this seemed to me a Pagan name, which stood in no calendar, and therefore I took counsel of a priest in the city.

1818 Translation by George Soane of Undine (1811) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, W.Simpkin and R. Marshall, pages 24-25

(rare outside fiction) A female given name from Latin.


maqaf

Transliteration of Hebrew מַקָּף (maqaf).

The maqaf is available only in some Hebrew keyboard layouts.

(Hebrew typography) The Hebrew script hyphen (־)


anceps

Borrowed from Latin anceps (literally “double-headed”).

bor

(poetry, Greek and Latin meter) A syllable that can be either short or long.


blort

en-noun

blort (countable and uncountable, plural blorts)

Onomatopoetic; in sense 1, also blend of blow + snort.

(ABDL, chiefly art and comics, uncommon) Indicates the sound of defecation, especially into a diaper.


counterproof

(printing) The inverted image of an original proof.


molecular assembler

molecular assembler (plural molecular assemblers)

(science fiction) A device that, given an object and sufficient atoms of the required elements, would reproduce exact copies.


rebis

From Latin rēs (“matter”) + Latin bīna (“double”).

af

While the rebis is the final form of alchemical variability, the larger process of alchemy looked to mercury as both the agent and patient of transformative possibilities.

2023, Micah James Goodrich, “Trans Animacies and Premodern Alchemies”, in Medieval Mobilities: Gendered Bodies, Spaces, and Movements, page 214:

(alchemy, fiction) The end product of the alchemical magnum opus, a reunion of opposing qualities such as spirit and matter or male and female, represented by an androgynous being.


superkick

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

Thirty minutes later this superkick landed me, when I came crashing back to earth, at the door of the Egyptian tomb.

1920, The Saturday Evening Post, Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, page 129:

"Mere you-tickle-me-I-tickle you stuff. No Urge^([sic]) about that sort of thing; no Superkick;—well Starfire, if you know what I mean!"— she said it shyly, being young enough and Anglo-Saxon enough, to dread the language.

1933, Eleanor Mercein Kelly, Arabesque, Harper & Brothers, page 231:

Lori Couto's SUPERKICK?

1980, Berkley Middle School Yearbook, Berkley Public Library, page 29:

At the end of the season, in December, they have a competitive and hilarious “superkick,’ a contest measuring accuracy, distance, and style (“style meaning how mongrelly your kicks are”), but that’s generally the extent of formal ceremony, a fact Kelly savors.

2004, Brian Doyle, Spirited Men: Story, Soul & Substance, Cowley Publications, →ISBN, page 127:

(martial arts, video games, fantasy, science fiction, rare) An extremely strong kick, performed with proficiency, which differs from the common wrestling variation.


preroll

en-noun

preroll (countable and uncountable, plural prerolls)

(film, uncountable) A period of time during which the camera rolls but before the action begins.


lead-out

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

The lead - in rating is expected to be the greatest single predictor of a syndicated television program , with the leadout second

1992, Roger Alan Cooper, Syndication and the Structural Determinants of Television:

(broadcasting) A program scheduled to follow another.


reset button

But after a year of sagging ratings, Dallas hit the reset button, by having Pam wake up to see Bobby, very much alive, lathering up in their shower. The entire 1985–86 season, including Bobby's death, had been a bad dream of Pam's, and now that she was awake, Dallas could go on the way it should have, with the previous year's events effectively wiped away.

2016, David Bianculli, The Platinum Age of Television […] , Anchor, →ISBN, page 140:

Voyager the show ambles and meanders just like Voyager the ship, hypothetically exploring new territory but actually doomed to retreads and consequence-free episodic storytelling (heavy on what fans came to call “the Reset Button” that restores the status quo), exacerbated by overuse of technobabble.

2020, Murray Leeder, “Confessions of an Anti-Fan”, in Robert L. Lively, editor, Exploring Star Trek: Voyager: Critical Essays, McFarland, →ISBN, page 250:

(fiction) A plot device that interrupts continuity in works of fiction, by returning characters and situations to the status quo they held before certain changes were introduced.


hblank

(television, computing) Abbreviation of horizontal blanking.


vblank

(television, computing) Abbreviation of vertical blanking.


genre fiction

genre fiction (usually uncountable, plural genre fictions)

Genre fiction encourages a focus on one aspect at the expense of others. This can produce an obsessive, powerful work. But a literary novel has, somewhere, to open out into the universal.

2014 April 22, Anita Mason, “Genre fiction radiates from a literary centre”, in The Guardian:

(authorship) Fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre (such as mystery, romance, or horror) with an existing audience.


hard news

Under Editor Murray J. Gart, 56, former chief of the Time-Life News Service, the Star stressed hard news and straightforward reporting over fancy writing and instant analysis.

1981 August 3, Janice Castro, David S. Jackson, “Press: Washington Loses a Newspaper”, in Time, archived from the original on 2010-11-16:

Even in the late 70's […] women's news was regarded as, by definition, soft news. Today, issues like sexual harassment and the difficulties of single parents are understood to be, in every sense, hard news.

1993 October 24, “News About The Magazine”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-12-06:

Ed Bradley, who died yesterday of leukemia at age 65, […] covered hard news and soft features with equal commitment, grace and skill, and many of his stories and interviews were impossible to forget.

2006 November 10, David Bianculli, “Ed Earned his ‘60 mins.’ of TV Fame”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 2010-12-06:

Because homepages reflect the values of institutions, and Facebook and Twitter reflect the interest of individual readers. These digital grazers have shown again and again that they aren't interested in hard news, but rather entertainment, self-help, awe, and outrage dressed up news.

2014 May 15, Derek Thompson, “What the Death of Homepages Means for the Future of News”, in The Atlantic:

For many young people, clicking on to Instagram to get the latest news is now as second nature as picking up a daily newspaper once was to generations before. For a site that has traditionally been a platform for sharing lifestyle content rather than hard news, this is a shift in millennials and Gen Z, at a time when news updates seem more important than ever.

2020 July 27, Katie Bishop, “Why are millennials and Gen Z turning to Instagram as a news source?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(journalism, broadcasting) Factual reportage of events which are socially or politically significant and of a serious nature, as opposed to the reporting of entertaining, humorous, or gossipy accounts of relatively inconsequential events.


unhatted

However, the translation of Razor programs is such that matching hatted and unhatted action particles can only be found on different sides of a parallel composition operator […]

2001, Eike Best, Raymond Devillers, Maciej Koutny, Petri net algebra, page 339:

(typography) Written without a circumflex ('^').


Pikachu

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

(video games, anime, manga) A small yellow rodent-like Pokémon species that has red cheeks and a tail shaped like a lightning bolt, and has electricity-related powers.


vrykolakas

Borrowed from Greek βρυκόλακας (vrykólakas).

(folklore) In Greek folklore, a harmful undead creature that eats flesh, somewhat like a vampire or zombie.


bioneer

Blend of biological + pioneer or biological + engineer, possibly coined by Kenny Ausubel.

Beneath the coat, a metal frame of gears and levers and wheels: living bone, tendon, sinew holding it together. A bioneer’s wet dream.

2002, Trent Jamieson, Garry Nurrish, Redsine, 7, →ISBN, page 13:

(chiefly science fiction) A biological engineer, an engineer of creatures, especially partially artificial/mechanical ones.


bioneer

en-verb

bioneer (third-person singular simple present bioneers, present participle bioneering, simple past and past participle bioneered)

bioneers (present singular third-person)
bioneering (participle present)
bioneered (participle past)
bioneered (past)

Lost beneath her abundant flesh was a vestigial skeleton which floated disconnected and unmoving in a gelatinous sea. Her bioneered organs were swollen to immense proportions and hundreds of liters of blood pumped through her extensive circulatory system.

1975, Thomas F. Monteleone, edited by Roger Elwood, Dystopian visions, page 3:

Devon scowled. "This is clever bioneering. A muttie that dies before it lives."

2002, Trent Jamieson, Garry Nurrish, Redsine, 7, →ISBN, page 11:

[…] an open space that would not have been possible a millennium earlier, before the development of sophisticated bioneering.

2002, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., The Octagonal Raven, →ISBN, page 90:

The cows were bioneered
so urbs could have fresh milk, laced
with graces — vitamins and serums conveyed in compact, pet-like packages. Even their shit is boutiqued. It falls in uniform pellets and smells like Zen.

2007, Peter Jay Shippy, How to build the ghost in your attic: a book-length poem, page 21:

(chiefly science fiction) To engineer biologically.


Callistan

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Callisto.


SPG

(Philippines, television, film) Initialism of strong parental guidance.


Gaian

(chiefly science fiction) An inhabitant of Earth.


broken rhyme

The lofty passes of the mountain he has left to the more skilful climber, and hath contented himself with wandering round its base, picking up the blossoms that were scattered at his feet; or with endeavouring to portray some rustic pictures in broken rhyme.

1874, John King, Rustic Pictures and Broken Rhymes:

(poetry) The splitting of the final word in a line of poetry (onto the next line) such that a rhyme is formed from a syllable other than the last.


tsundere

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

Borrowed from Japanese ツンデレ (tsundere), from つんつん (tsun-tsun, “in a cross, aloof, or standoffish manner”, adverb) + でれでれ (dere-dere, “in a lovey-dovey, infatuated, or lovestruck manner”, adverb).

I usually draw very peaceful, happy manga, so it has been a real challenge for me to illustrate the vice president's death glare and Ri-chan's subtle tsundere attitude.

2008, Kio Shimoku, Kujibiki Unbalance 1, Del Rey/Ballantine Books, →ISBN, unnumbered page:

Even Kaname's rude and overbearing tsundere personality is explained by her having gone to school in the United States where she was socialized to just bluntly say what she thought.

2010 August 14, David Johnston, “Full Metal Panic: One Night Stand”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

Despite his apparent power, the boy behaves with uncharacteristic meekness toward the formidable tsundere Misato Tachibana, whose grotesquely distorted romantic feelings for Koujirou almost invariably result in her shooting him all over the school with heavy weaponry (which seems to spring out of nowhere).

2012, Dani Cavallaro, Kyoto Animation: A Critical Study and Filmography, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 157:

(chiefly Japanese fiction) A fictional character who fits the archetype of being cold or even hostile towards another person before gradually showing a warm and caring side.

تْسُونْدِرِي

character who fits the archetype of being cold or hostile before gradually showing a warm and caring side


put to bed

put to bed (third-person singular simple present puts to bed, present participle putting to bed, simple past and past participle put to bed)

puts to bed (present singular third-person)
putting to bed (participle present)
put to bed (participle past)
put to bed (past)

Coordinate term: go to bed

(transitive, idiomatic, printing) To prepare (a newspaper) for printing.


NFA

not for attribution
not for attribution#English

(journalism) Initialism of not for attribution


postwork

principal photography
principal photography

(cinematography) Postproduction, work on filmed material after principal photography, as to improve image quality or synchronize sound.


Oscar bait

"O'Toole and Hepburn are memorable and matchless. You'll never see better performances. These are both Oscar bait outings.

1968 December 16, New York Magazine, volume 1, number 37, →ISSN, page 5:

Director Steven Soderbergh's Traffic was more typical Oscar bait, but the high-minded three-hour film about the drug trade along the US/ Mexican border was also inconsistent, and Soderbergh's fondness for mixing in grainy film stock and jerky handheld cameras didn't figure to endear him to older Academy voters.

2005, Steve Pond, The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards, page 261:

(film) A film or films perceived to have been produced at least partially in order to be nominated for, and hopefully win, an Academy Award.


rule of three

(writing, rhetoric) A rule which states that things which come in groups of three are inherently funnier or more effective than things which come in groups of other sizes.

(writing, rhetoric) Specifically, the technique of having a setup in advance, a reminder to keep it fresh in the audience's memory, and then a payoff.


offcast

offcast (third-person singular simple present offcasts, present participle offcasting, simple past and past participle offcast)

offcasts (present singular third-person)
offcasting (participle present)
offcast (participle past)
offcast (past)

From Middle English ofcasten, equivalent to off- + cast. Cognate with Danish afkaste (“to shed”), Swedish avkasta (“to crop, throw off, yield”).
The noun is possibly derived from Middle English ofcast (“the refuse of plants”).

inh

The experiment to offcast Davis began in 1937 with That Certain Woman; "She's a lady," we are told.

1985, Tino Balio, The American film industry:

[...] and Paramount was not inclined to offcast its stars, the story was dropped.

White actresses were able to maintain a more multidimensional star persona than actresses of color, thanks in large part to their ability to off-cast themselves in challenging roles and control their off-screen image through publicity.

2015, Emily Carman, Independent Stardom:

(transitive, theater, television) to remove from the cast of a production.


antag

(informal, fiction, writing) Clipping of antagonist.


HAL

artificial intelligence
artificial intelligence

(fiction, computing) A homicidal computer, an artificial intelligence that acts similarly to the HAL 9000 featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey.


poioumenon

Ancient Greek ποιούμενον (poioúmenon), "product".

The poioumenon has a long prehistory (hardly a tradition), going back through Beckett's trilogy and Carlyle's Sartor Resartus to Sterne's Tristram Shandy; but it is preeminently a postmodernist genre.

1991, Alastair Fowler, A History of English Literature:

(literature) A specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of creation (sometimes the creation of the story itself).


necrocracy

en-noun

necrocracy (countable and uncountable, plural necrocracies)

From necro- (“dead”) + -cracy (“power, rule”).

confix

(fantasy, science fiction) A government ruled by the undead.


nondiegetic

(film music) That does not occur as part of the action, and cannot be heard by the film's characters; background.


Saci

Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese saci, from Old Tupi sa'si.

(folklore) A black, one-legged, prankster youngster in Brazilian folklore, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red hat that enables him to disappear.


dropship

I'm sending down five more dropships, combat EMVs, and a thopter gunship.

1997 September 14, Dan Simmons, The Rise of Endymion, New York: Bantam, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 363:

IFF confirmed. Contact is Pelican Dropship Kilo 23. Over.

2007 September 25, Bungie, Halo 3, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox 360, level/area: Sierra 117:

(science fiction) A flying transport that drops troops or equipment onto a planet, etc.


pentina

(poetry) A fixed verse form consisting of five stanzas of five lines each, normally followed by a two-line envoi.


suicide booth

(fiction) A booth that contains equipment to kill a user who wants to commit suicide, often automatically.


scrape up

en-verb

scrape up (third-person singular simple present scrapes up, present participle scraping up, simple past and past participle scraped up)

scrapes up (present singular third-person)
scraping up (participle present)
scraped up (participle past)
scraped up (past)

(transitive, printing, obsolete) To clean a roller and slab by removing ink.


handwavium

From hand waving + -ium (“the chemical element suffix”).

af

My handwavium was an invented mineral, but - reading up - what about platinum? Could I substitute platinum for handwavium?

2008 February 3, Jacey Bedford <jacey@artisan-harmony.com>, “Handwavium”, in rec.arts.sf.composition (Usenet):

It made no sense to him that their very impossibility was their pleasure. He puzzled over the spacecraft and their handwavium drives. "The thousand and one nights of Scheherazade, told by an engineering student who failed his graduation exams," was his literary judgment.

2008 March, Alexander Jablokov, “The Boarder”, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, volume 114, number 3, Concord, N.H.: Fantasy House, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9:

She writes romantic fantasy and science fiction, and makes liberal use of the substance known as handwavium.

2012, Imogen Howson, Blood of the Volcano, Cincinnati, Oh.: Samhain Publishing, →ISBN, page 167:

(informal, fiction) Any hypothetical but unobtainable material with desirable engineering properties.


spec script

(authorship) A screenplay for a movie that is written on spec and then shopped or sold on the open market, as opposed to one commissioned by a studio or production company.


ur-poem

(literature, poetry) A poem that is believed to be a precursor or prototype to a more modern class of poetry; usually a hypothetical 'mother poem' of a genre.


AJE

(television) Initialism of Al Jazeera English.


AJ

en-proper noun

AJ (countable and uncountable, plural AJs)


meido

From Japanese メイド (meido, “maid, maidservant”), from English maid.

uder

I was really struck by how many of the bishoujo cliches it managed to bring up. We already have the older sister, younger sister, childhood friend, and exotic transfer student. We have a genki girl, a ditzy girl, a hime-sama, and a meido.

2006 October 13, Abraham Evangelista, “Re: Crescent Love - dull new anime”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

And then there’s Roberta, who seems like a typical meido (maid) character until she pulls out machine guns from her lacy uniform!

2008 October 12, Kitty Sensei, “Playing pirate”, in Malaysia Star:

Although this is a manga about maids, don’t expect to see the submissive and fawning maids of the meido category. The protagonist here is a faithful, skilled and courteous maid from the old English society.

2008, Memedi, "Loyal helper", Malaysia Star, 9 November 2008

(chiefly Japanese fiction) A female fictional character who is employed as a maid, typically wearing a stylized French maid outfit.


merism

en-noun

merism (countable and uncountable, plural merisms)

From Ancient Greek μερισμός (merismós). Compare μέρος (méros, “part”).

(literature, rhetoric) A reference to something by its polar extremes, as in "we searched high and low".

(literature, rhetoric) A reference to something by a list of its parts.


pompet

(historical, printing) A ball used for inking the type.


killbot

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

(especially science fiction) A robot designed to kill; a robotic assassin.


VCC

Video Compact Cassette
w:Video Compact Cassette

(television) Initialism of Video Compact Cassette.


netori

Borrowed from Japanese 寝取(ねと)り (netori).

(pornography, slang) A genre of cuckoldry pornography where a protagonist takes away someone else's love interest.


netorare

/neɪtəʊɹɑːɹeɪ/

Borrowed from Japanese 寝取(ねと)られ (netorare).

(pornography, slang) A genre of cuckoldry pornography where a protagonist's love interest or close associate is corrupted and taken away by an antagonist.


reordrant

/ɹiːˈɔɹdɹənt/

From reorder + -ant. By analogy with reentrant.

(computing, typography) Of a character (usually a vowel in Indic scripts): input after another character, but intended to display before it when text is rendered.


NTR

Borrowed from Japanese NTR(エヌティーアール) (enutīāru).

(pornography, slang) Initialism of netorare.


NTR

en-verb

NTR (third-person singular simple present NTRs, present participle NTRing, simple past and past participle NTRed)

NTRs (present singular third-person)
NTRing (participle present)
NTRed (participle past)
NTRed (past)


rule of thirds

(photography, film, visual arts) A normative rule that an image should be mentally or representationally divided in three horizontally and diagonally, and that the focus of the image should not be in the center of the resulting shape.


safe area

(television) The area of a television image that is expected to be viewable on all television screens, including old ones that typically crop the borders of the image.


closed time loop

en-noun

closed time loop (plural closed time loops)

(science fiction) A chain of events in which someone or something time travels to the past as a means to fulfill their role in the history exactly as it already happened, thus implying impossibility to change the past.


autoinfanticide

For consider the most lurid implication of Gödel's idea – autoinfanticide.

2015, Roger Highfield, Peter Coveney, The Arrow of Time:

The inventor of a time machine about to commit autoinfanticide in the past

2016, Paul J. Nahin, Time Machine Tales, page 212:

(science fiction) The act of traveling back in time to the past and killing oneself as a baby.


DTD

Darwin Digital Television
w:Darwin Digital Television

(media, Australia) Initialism of Darwin Digital Television.


impervium

(science fiction) An impervious substance.


roger that

Extension of roger for received in radio traffic (by 1950), the pronoun referring to the last information received; in use by 1969, popularised at first by radio transmissions from NASA's Apollo missions, later in military fiction.

1969 "Capsule Communicator: '11, this is Houston. We've completed the trunnion zero bias setting. You can retrieve the computer and go to BLOCK.' Commander (Neil A. Armstrong): 'Roger that. Thank you.' ", Apollo 11 Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription (Tape 4/5, mission time 5h 16 min), 16 July 1969.

1974 "This is the book for everybody who ever groaned under the onslaught of trivia transmitted by the astronauts ('This sunset is really something, Houston...' 'Roger that...'). review of M. Collins, "Carrying the Fire", Flying Magazine, November 1974, p. 108.

1989 "'It's going to blow visibility to shit, too.' 'Roger that.'" Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger, p. 506.

(radio telecommunications) Received (used in radio communications to acknowledge that a message has been received and understood)


bipack

(cinematography) The process of loading two reels of film into a camera, so that they both pass through the camera gate together, formerly used for visual effects and as a subtractive colour process.


bipack

en-verb

bipack (third-person singular simple present bipacks, present participle bipacking, simple past and past participle bipacked)

bipacks (present singular third-person)
bipacking (participle present)
bipacked (participle past)
bipacked (past)

(cinematography) To load two reels of film in this manner.


cybersuit

The notion of a second skin may still be more seductive in the imagining than the reality, but on the utopian side of the Blade Runner there is the prospect of cybersuits, made possible by petrochemical fabrics.

1999, Herbert Blau, Nothing in itself: complexions of fashion, page 268:

Just as these suits make cybersex possible, they let the physician poke and feel, using cybergloves on one end and the patient's cybersuit responding on the other.

2002, Douglas Mulhall, Our molecular future:

He was looking at a small flexible screen wrapped halfway around his forearm, meshed into the fabric of his cybersuit.

2010, Sam Fisher, E-FORCE: State of Emergency, page 61:

(science fiction) A hypothetical suit of clothing that augments the wearer's capabilities by means of computer technology.


hypersleep

suspended animation
suspended animation#English

(science fiction) A form of suspended animation in which the body's functions are not merely slowed down but halted entirely.


antispinward

en-adv

antispinward (comparative more antispinward, superlative most antispinward)

more antispinward (comparative)
most antispinward (superlative)

To antispinward was the largest mountain men had ever seen.

1970 October, Larry Niven, Ringworld, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 152:

My fathers and mothers tell that we have been moving to antispinward since they were little. They remember that they had to go around a great sea, but they did not come too close, because the beasts would not eat the plants that grow around the shore.

1978, Galileo: Magazine of Science & Fiction, Boston, Mass.: Avenue Victor Hugo Publishers, page 77:

Laura imagined that he would expect them to flee along the beams, and she watched his narrow face searching the impenetrable shadows antispinward of where they hid.

1985, Nancy Kress, Trinity and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: Bluejay Books, →ISBN, page 214:

Edna's language was peppered with the unfamiliar. You found your way around a spinning space habitat by going spinward or antispinward or axisward ...

2007, Arthur C. Clarke with Stephen Baxter, Firstborn [A Time Odyssey; 3], New York, N.Y.: Del Rey Books; Ballantine Books, →ISBN:

antispinward adv. in or toward the opposite direction that something (a space station, galaxy, etc.) is rotating.

2007, Jeff Prucher, editor, Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 9:

"[…] You would fall against the anti-spinward wall and slide down along that wall until you hit the floor ..." / "Whoa, whoa, whoa ..." Lars interrupted. "Anti-spinward? What in the world?" / "Moving in the same direction as the Station's direction of spin is considered spinward. Moving in the direction opposite the spin is considered anti-spinward. You sound like a boy asking what one does with his hands when the rollercoaster car leaves the track."

2015, Steven Burgauer, Skullcap, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN:

(often science fiction) In a rotating reference frame, against the direction of spin.


choric

(poetry) Intended to be sung by a choir or chorus (e.g. a hymn)


mittel

(printing, German contexts, dated) Synonym of English.


CMY

(printing) Initialism of cyan, magenta, yellow.


aftershow

(television) A talk show that discusses another television show that has already aired.


quadrature amplitude modulation

en-noun

quadrature amplitude modulation (countable and uncountable, plural quadrature amplitude modulations)

quadrature amplitude modulations (plural)

(radio) A modulation scheme that conveys data by applying amplitude modulation to two carrier waves at once. These two waves, usually sinusoids, are out of phase with each other by 90° and are thus called quadrature carriers. Commonly abbreviated QAM.


RRD

Reti Radiotelevisive Digitali
w:Reti Radiotelevisive Digitali

(media) Initialism of Reti Radiotelevisive Digitali.


semisyllable

(orthography) A glyph from a semisyllabary.


rewriteman

This was my abrupt introduction to the system by which most of the live news is handled for the New York evening newspapers [...] Its continued use has bred up two distinct and separate types of news-specialists—the leg man, who gets the story, but rarely writes it; and the rewrite man, who writes the story but rarely gets it.

1913, Irvin S[hrewsbury] Cobb, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 185, Philadelphia, Pa., London: Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 23; republished in “The Third Stick”, in Stickfuls: (Myself—To Date) (The Works of Irvin S. Cobb), New York, N.Y.: The Review of Reviews Corporation publishers; published by arrangement with George H[enry] Doran Company, 1923, →OCLC, part 1 (Getting Set in New York: In Three Takes), page 136:

Many of the changes which have taken place in the newspaper field within the last fifty years have been in the direction of specialization. At the turn of the century, for example, a reporter got his stories, wrote them, and sometimes even made up his own headlines. Legmen and rewrite men were practically unknown.

1954, Edmond D[avid] Coblentz, “Introduction: The Drift toward Specialization”, in Edmond D. Coblentz, editor, Newsmen Speak: Journalists on Their Craft, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, →OCLC, page 125:

LEG MEN cover local events and phone the information to a rewrite man.

1973, “Newspaper and Wire Service Operations”, in Journalist 3 & 2: Naval Training Command Rate Training Manual (NAVTRA 10294-C), Washington, D.C.: Published by Naval Training Command; United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 153, column 2:

After working as a copy boy and then a reporter at The New York Journal-American, he joined The New York Herald Tribune as a night rewriteman.

2007 September 22, Robert D. Mcfadden, “James F. Clarity dies at 75; reported on crime, politics and war”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.:

[Allen] Raymond was the son of a Methodist lay preacher who traded his Ivy League, New England pedigree for a hardboiled journalistic persona cultivated over decades as a "legman," rewrite man, copyeditor, and reporter for a dozen urban newspapers, mostly in metropolitan New York.

2009, James T. Fisher, “Epilogue: Souls of the (Port) Apostolate”, in On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York (Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-century America), Ithaca, N.Y., London: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 299:

(journalism) A newspaper reporter who crafts stories from information reported by others, such as legmen.


nonanimation

In “The Gap,” the show’s only nonanimation film, visitors to the annual car show at the Pasadena Art Center admire a futuristic blue Lexus designed for Steven Spielberg ’s “Minority Report.”

2007 October 5, The New York Times, “Art in Review”, in New York Times:


yokai

From Japanese 妖怪 (yōkai, “ghost, phantom”).

(folklore, Japanese mythology) Any of various supernatural monsters, sometimes shapeshifters, in Japanese folklore.


Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu

the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu (canonical)

law (“rule”) + of + conservation (“preservation”) + of + ninjutsu (“a martial art used by ninjas”)
The law implies that each team of ninjas has the same finite amount of "power" of martial arts, therefore a team with fewer ninjas has more powerful ninjas.

> The more creativity and ingenuity you give your aliens, the less is
> available for your humans, generally the protagonists, which means
> things will end poorly for Our Heroes. [...]
Sort of like a SCIENCE application of the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu?

2007 December 3, sw <sw@eyrie.org>, “Re: Why so few creative aliens?”, in rec.arts.sf.written (Usenet), message-ID <slrnfl8dbu.6gg.sw@haven.eyrie.org>:

In other words, if I can tweak the minion->normal->elite->solo system into a^([sic]) in-game representation of the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu, there will be much win.

2008 May 19, Nockermensch <ralgomes@gmail.com>, “Re: Ampersand: The Scoop on D&D Insider”, in rec.games.frp.dnd (Usenet), message-ID <11398510-50ce-4342-a223-ca68b86c8b89@25g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>:

The Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu was working in the main characters' favor, but even so, it was hard going.

2011 February 19, Andrew Perron <pwerdna@gmail.com>, “LNH/RACCies: Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron in the Return of the RACCies! #10: Poledancing Phantoms of Limbo”, in rec.arts.comics.creative (Usenet), message-ID <1hmvlegtnnkih$.1p14289mto1ro.dlg@40tude.net>:

(narratology, fiction, informal, humorous) The ability of one or few people to win fights against many opponents.


fabulism

fabulism (usually uncountable, plural fabulisms)

(literature) A literary form in which fantastical elements are placed into an everyday setting.


farspeaker

From farspeak + -er. Compare German Fernsprecher (“telephone”).

"I wish I wasn't so messed up; I wish I was bigger and stronger. Or a Farspeaker like Kyril,” she replied in a very small voice. “You can't help what happened. As for being a Farspeaker, I don't think both of us together could reach someone with the Gift to hear us, and if we could, I don't know that it would do any good," he sighed.

(science fiction, fantasy) One who farspeaks.

Ecgbert picked up the farspeaker eagerly. "Frideswide darling! I have been wating to hear from you all the morning. […] "

1948, New Statesman: the week-end review

"Let's find out whether I do or not," said Yull imperturbably, and activated the farspeaker to maximum volume. At one a voice rang out, impersonal, repetitive: the sound of a recordimal.

1984, John Brunner, The Crucible of Time:

“Sir, we found him in the farspeaker room,” said one of the guards. “He was tampering with the equipment."

2009, Nick Gevers, Jay Lake, Other Earths:

She held it out toward him. It was the size of a chicken egg, only broken in half. The other half of the crystal—carried by another—would vibrate in tune with its twin, allowing communication, like a walkie-talkie. “A farspeaker! Pindor gasped out. "Why didn't you tell us you had one!" "I did. Back when I first ran into you all," she reminded them. "I had been calling Papa on my farspeaker when I was snatched here."

2011, James Rollins, Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx:

(science fiction) A device or apparatus used to farspeak or communicate over long distances.


previsualization

previsualization (countable and uncountable, plural previsualizations)

What became Imageworks began at Sony Pictures in 1992 with five people using computers to help plan complicated live-action scenes — a practice that has since become known as previsualization.

2007 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, “Sony Said to Be Pondering Partial Sale of Movie Units”, in New York Times:

(film) Any technique that attempts to visualize a scene before the filming begins.


hovercam

Like almost everyone else in her world, Aya records everything she does with the help of a semi-sentient hovercam (a sort of floating soccer ball that's a cross between R2D2 and Weegee), using the resulting footage to boost her face rank.

2007 November 11, James Hynes, “Looks Aren't Everything”, in New York Times:

(science fiction) A mobile hovering camera.


superhero insurance

(fiction, humorous) A supposed form of insurance held by superheroes, who often cause excessive damage to property without having to deal with payments or lawsuits.


explodium

(chiefly fiction) Any material that explodes extremely easily.


ass to mouth

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-ass to mouth.wav

Acts are classified as 'ass to mouth', or 'ATM' in porn industry language, when 'a man removes his penis from a woman's anus and, without cleaning it, places it in her mouth, or the mouth of another woman

2010, Karen Boyle, Everyday Pornography:

“Anything I want,” you whispered into my ear. “Yes, yes,” I said. “You're going to do ass to mouth next,” you said. “And don't you dare flinch. I have a dirty cock covered in your shit and you're going to suck and lick it clean.

2010, Valerie Gray, the Education Of a Slut:

The list of unsafe (and for many people, distasteful) practices common in porn is lengthy and ever changing. Besides the incredibly trendy ass-to-mouth fetish, there's bottle-fucking, bile-drooling, throat-gagging to the point of vomiting, eye and nasal ejaculation, anal-to-vaginal penetration, anal penetration without lubricant, multiple male "cream pies"...

2005, Russ Kick, Everything you know about sex is wrong: the Disinformation guide to the extremes of human sexuality (and everything in between):

(pornography) A sexual act in which the penis or another object is removed from someone's anus and promptly put into another's mouth.


DTH

(television, Canada, US) Initialism of direct-to-home.


direct broadcast satellite

direct broadcast satellite (plural direct broadcast satellites)

(television) a television satellite that broadcasts directly to the final recipient/viewer, to a home satellite dish.


DBS

DBS (countable and uncountable, plural DBSes)

I looked at it and there is almost nothing there for me that I do not already receive with a combination of my analog $200 receiver and my $99 DBS minidish. On the contrary, there are quite a few channels that have gone digital that I receive (for a fee) thru the minidish.

1998 March 1, PELOPAS KIATOY KORINTHIAS, “Re: IPG ON 4DTV”, in alt.video.satellite.4dtv (Usenet):

direct broadcast satellite
direct broadcast satellite#English

(television) Initialism of direct broadcast satellite.


spirit duplicator

spirit duplicator (plural spirit duplicators)

The advantage of using old-fashioned spirit duplicators and mimeograph machines is in the cost per page, which is typically less than a penny, as against 2 or 3 cents per copy from a laser printer.

1992 August 2, Peter H. Lewis, “Low-Tech Renewal”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(historical, printing) An early document copier using alcohol-based solvents.


XNA

(journalism) Initialism of Xinhua News Agency (“新华社”).; the New China News Agency (新华通讯社); the government news agency of the People's Republic of China


key grip

(film) The head of the grip department, involved with lighting and camera movement.


incut

incut notes

(printing) Inserted in a reserved space of the text instead of in the main margin.


incut

(printing) A note inserted in a reserved space of the text instead of in the main margin.


hoverjet

(science fiction) A kind of levitating aeroplane or spacecraft.


CTF

CTF (countable and uncountable, plural CTFs)

(countable, pornography) Initialism of cock transformation.


hoverbike

(science fiction) A motorbike capable of levitation.


CanCon

In the early part of the Cancon era, CKLW demonstrated considerable reluctance in programming legitimately locally-made singles. Rather, the station searched out U.S. records with dubious Canadian connections (many a song written by Paul Anka, who left Canada 15 years ago, have found their way into ’LW playlists) to avoid taking a chance on unknown Canadian artists.

1973 May 19, Ritchie York, “Artist Claims CKLW’s Keen Interest Affects U.S. Hits”, in Billboard, volume 85, number 21, Los Angeles: Billboard Publications, page 58:

(informal, Canada, broadcasting) Canadian content, in the context of Canadian regulations setting minimum quotas of Canadian content for Canadian radio and television broadcasters.


watchphone

Elaborate Swiss watchphones peeked from their sleeves.

1989, Bruce Sterling, Islands in the net:

Products will run the gamut from digital assistants to Dick Tracy-style wireless watchphones.

1996, Michael Moynihan, The coming American renaissance:

The watchphone would have a detachable microphone and earpiece.

1997, Popular Science, volume 250, number 6, page 64:

Damien's watchphone beeps, and from it Heavitree's voice emerges:

2002, Don Sakers, Dance for the Ivory Madonna: a romance of psiberspace, page 16:

(chiefly science fiction) A watch with telephone capabilities.


hovercycle

(science fiction) A bicycle capable of levitation.


cough button

So called because the radio presenter might push the button when having to cough.

Mucho pressed his cough button a moment, but only smiled. It seemed odd. How could they hear a smile?

1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 103:

"Al pushed his cough button, stood up, punched the guy and knocked him flat on his back," recalls Gordon. "He absolutely poled the man. Then he pushed the button again and continued on with his newscast. People watching never knew anything happened."

1987 March, Cincinnati Magazine, volume 20, number 6, page 51:

(broadcasting) A button that temporarily stops the recording and transmission of a radio show.


cue card

(film, television) A card with writing on it, shown to actors to remind them of their lines.


wyakin

(folklore) In Native American folklore, a personal guardian spirit in the form of an animal or bird.


closedown

closedown (countable and uncountable, plural closedowns)

(radio, television) The point when a radio or television station shuts down transmission and goes off the air for a predetermined period, as used to happen overnight.

Sendeschluss

the point when a radio or television station shuts down transmission


Aristophanic

en-adj

Aristophanic (comparative more Aristophanic, superlative most Aristophanic)

more Aristophanic (comparative)
most Aristophanic (superlative)


listicle

Coordinate term: charticle

Dishy books! Bruno Mars! Human excrement! Relieve the year that was in handy listicle form, on page 52.

2011 January–February, Doug Brod, editor, Spin, New York, N.Y.: Spin Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4:

"6 TITANIC SURVIVORS WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED." "THESE 9 NAZI ATROCITIES WILL MAKE YOU LOSE FAITH IN HUMANITY." "5 INSANE PLANS FOR FEEDING WEST BERLIN YOU WON’T BELIEVE ARE REAL." These are just some of the lists that the comic strip "XKCD" recently joked would result from retrofitting the twentieth century's most newsworthy events with modern, Internet-style headlines. Despite the growing derision of listicles exemplified by the comic, numbered lists—a venerable media format—have become one of the most ubiquitous ways to package content on the Web.

2013 December 2, Maria Konnikova, “A list of reasons why our brains love lists”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: New Yorker Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2014-03-27:

The Internet did not invent the listicle. Lists-as-arguments—lists-as-stories—have, of course, been around since long, long before Buzzfeed^([sic]) came along. And they haven't just been around; they've also been both playing with and poking fun at the list form itself, one item at a time. I mention that because the Public Domain Review has unearthed this gem, "The 25 Stages from Courtship to Marriage," a set of hand-tinted stereographs depicting a sampling of those stages, generally from the perspective of the woman being courted. The cards are undated, PDR notes, but they mostly likely originated in the late 19th century.

2014 April 7, Megan Garber, “Victorian Buzzfeed:^([sic]) ‘The 25 Stages From Courtship to Marriage’: Here’s a listicle from the 19th century that pokes fun at … listicles”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 2014-04-13:

It seems little more than an exercise in googling, an attempt to sell the listicle as literature.

2017 September 10, Leo Robson, “The Golden House is Salman Rushdie’s not-so-great American novel”, in New Statesman:

“Your trivia category choices are pop culture listicles, discontinued snack foods, or dog sounds.” “Hey, no shame in going for the easiest one, gimme the listicles.”

2024 August 12, Dominic Dierkes, “Live Die Repeat Device (Formerly Known as the Edge of Tomorrow Device)” (12:18 from the start), in Solar Opposites, season 5, episode 3, spoken by Jerry (Mikey Day):

(informal, journalism) An article based around a list.


Columbian

en-noun

Columbian (countable and uncountable, plural Columbians)

(uncountable, US printing, dated) A size of type between English and great primer, standardized as 16-point.


lobsterwoman

From lobster + -woman, modelled after lobsterman.

Coordinate term: lobsterman (m)

Pat's looks like a washerwoman, and mine, which I like the best, is a lobsterwoman with a lobsterbaby on her lap.

1996, Joan MacCracken, The Sun, the Rain, and the Insulin: Growing Up with Diabetes, page 210:

'You can't be Pamela Macx,' says Pierre, his back to the wall, keeping the sword point before the lobsterwoman-thing.

They ranged from the display of tattooed women as exotic pictures—like Salome/ "the famous Oriental beauty tattooed in seven colors," seen at Luna Park in 1912 (ATP, Fonds Soury, vol. 19, 149 top and bottom), a deeply erotic, nonnormative performance—to the virile displays of the female animal tamer's courage, to the gender inappropriate but familiar woman wrestler, and to the “monsters” such as mule women or lobster women.

2010, W. Spurlin, J. Hayes, Margaret R. Higonnet, Comparatively Queer:

The low-budget 1964 horror movie Vengeance of the Lobsterwoman provided Meryl Streep with her first starring role, opposite Roger Moore who played the Lobsterwoman.

2013, Graeme Garden, Jon Naismith, The Unbelievable Truth, page 185:

(fiction) A female alien or monster that appears like a hybrid of a human and a lobster.


dope sheet

From a workflow point of view, the access to these tools seems to have been guided by artists with experience with exposure sheets (a dope sheet for lip synch is included) and traditional animation.

2002 May 1, S. D. Katz, “Animation: Master 2002”, in digitalcontentproducer.com, retrieved 2011-08-07:

(idiomatic, film) A set of detailed instructions which the designer of an animated film provides to the photographers and editors.


orgasmatron

From orgasm + -tron, introduced in the film Sleeper (1973).

We do not know of any real-life orgasmatrons, even vibrators.

2002, Steve Bodansky, Vera Bodansky, The Illustrated Guide to Extended Massive Orgasm, page 225:

Among the eras have been Louis Quatorze (1967), Space Odyssey Moderne (2001) and perpetual futuristic spins on picture-palace Deco, including last year’s show, hosted by Jon Stewart, in which towering Oscars were encased in see-through capsules, resembling the orgasmatron in Woody Allen’s 1973 film “Sleeper.”

2009 February 15, Patricia Leigh Brown, “The Little Gold Man in a New Blue World”, in New York Times:

(science fiction) A hypothetical device capable of inducing orgasm.


runover

(printing) A line of text that overruns the available space.

CBS ranked No. 1 on Sunday night, aided by “60 Minutes” and an 18-minute runover into the 7 o’clock hour of live basketball coverage from the afternoon.

2009 March 31, Felicia R. Lee, “Television Ratings”, in New York Times:

(television) The situation where a television programme overruns its scheduled slot.


telepaper

But, as the anchorwoman assures us at the end, with a two-hour download time (at $5 an hour), “the new telepaper won’t be much competition for the 20-cent street edition.”

2009 May 10, Frank Rich, “The American Press on Suicide Watch”, in New York Times:

(rare, chiefly science fiction) A newspaper that can be downloaded in an electronic format.


hamfatter

US, a. 1880. Possibly from a minstrel show song called The Ham-Fat Man (1863).

(US slang, acting) A low-grade actor; a ham.


antivampire

en-adj

antivampire (comparative more antivampire, superlative most antivampire)

more antivampire (comparative)
most antivampire (superlative)

This is a revealing passage, for van Helsing is the stern realist, the guiding hand directing the antivampire confederacy.

1996, Howard L. Malchow, Gothic images of race in nineteenth-century Britain, page 146:

The Oscar, Time, and Murrow formed a magical antivampire crucifix that would do more than protect Mr. S from the bloodsuckers of Hollywood; this figurative talisman would also convert the naysayers into idolators.

2003, George Jacobs, William Stadiem, Mr. S: my life with Frank Sinatra, page 137:

(folklore, fantasy) Opposing or countering vampires.


weredog

Weredogs dread the same things which vampires, viscera suckers, and witches fear. But weredogs and witches are especially afraid of the sting ray's tail.

1968, California Folklore Society, Western folklore: Volumes 27-28:

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can change between dog and human form.


werelion

She dies before Anita can explain that it's unnecessary; but in a scuffle, one of the werelions is mortally wounded, and Anita uses his death to call up her power.

2011, Candace R. Benefiel, Reading Laurell K. Hamilton, page 60:

(fiction) A shapeshifter who can change between lion and human form.

lion-garou

shapeshifter assuming the shape of a lion


planetside

For Kincaid, that planet represented the chance to finally take part in a planetside assault out of the Marine legends on which he'd been weaned—a chance this mass butchery misnamed a war had offered in all too short supply.

2002, David Weber, Steve White, The Shiva option:


planetside

EOS (HNS) - Dead Coming Home
The remains of colonists who died in the first attempts to settle Eos are coming home. Remains from Sites 1 and 2 have finally been recovered, giving closure to numerous families aboard the Nexus. There are now calls for an inquiry into why the bodies were left planetside after two failed attempts to establish outposts.

2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-11-12, PC, scene: Nexus:


keyplate

(printing) The plate that prints the detail in an image.


antipoetry

(poetry) A literary movement that attempts to break away from the normal conventions of poetry.

antirunous

poetry that breaks away from normal conventions


stardate

Captain's log, stardate 3087.6. While investigating an uncharted planet, the Enterprise and at least this entire quadrant of space, has been subjected to violent, unexplained stress and force.

1967, Star Trek, The Alternative Factor, season 1, episode 27, spoken by William Shatner:

And to avoid any quantum entanglement, make sure that if you visit the show before it closes on the stardate equivalent to Sept. 20, your transporter is in working order.

2009 May 30, Edward Rothstein, “The U.S.S. Enterprise, in Strange New World of Museum”, in New York Times:

(science fiction) A date according to the fictional system of time measurement developed for Star Trek.


cryosleep

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

“Constantly shifting positions and priorities. Outright deception. And behind it all, the possibility we'll be hit again by this Scourge. Despite all that, their solution is for us to return to cryo. Just take a little nap and all our problems will go away.”[…]
What had Calix and his team become? This was no simple protest. His speech had implied as much. To resist the order to return to cryo-sleep, by definition it made these people a resistance.

2017 March, Jason M. Hough, K. C. Alexander, Mass Effect Andromeda: Nexus Uprising, 1st edition (Science Fiction), Titan Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 369–370:

(science fiction) A deep sleep during which the body is stored at very cold temperature, to preserve it; cryogenic sleep.


sepmag

Clipping of separate magnetic (“from the magnetic tape used for recording”).

clipping

At the appropriate distances (28, 26 and 20 frames) ahead of the JOIN PICTURE HERE line there are rows of squares, circles and triangles which indicate the correct splicing points for 16-mm sepmag, 16-mm sepopt and […]

1968, D. J. Corbett, Motion Picture and Television Film, page 64:

Sound for these two telecines is reproduced from conventional sepmag tape machines.

1970, BBC Engineering, numbers 81-88, page 13:

(television, dated) Having a separately magnetically recorded soundtrack running concurrently with the film footage.


heroicomical

en-adj

heroicomical (comparative more heroicomical, superlative most heroicomical)

more heroicomical (comparative)
most heroicomical (superlative)

a heroicomical poem

(literature) Blending heroic and comical elements.


Paganini

Hannah King stands on 'paganinis' (wooden blocks) to embrace Patrick Ryecart […]

1993, Daniel Meadows, Set pieces: being about film stills mostly, page 42:

[…] a small wedge of wood used to hold open doors and level furniture on the set. Usually carried by the stagehands, standby carpenters, etc., its use is more precise than Paganinis.

2009, Tony Bill, Movie Speak: How to Talk Like You Belong on a Film Set, page 113:

(film) One of a set of blocks for raising the height of a person or equipment.


closed form

en-noun

closed form (countable and uncountable, plural closed forms)

(poetry) A type of poetry with regular structure, such as meter or a rhyming pattern.


backward slash

backward slash (plural backward slashes)


Gogolesque

en-adj

Gogolesque (comparative more Gogolesque, superlative most Gogolesque)

more Gogolesque (comparative)
most Gogolesque (superlative)

(literature) Reminiscent of the works of Nikolai Gogol.


antibacchius

(poetry) A rare metrical foot consisting of two accented syllables followed by one unaccented syllable.


skycycle

“The blasters and lasers on the skycycles are fully charged and set on the highest level of power,” answered Tiffany in her high voice.

2005, Matthew T Bird, The Scumball Saga, page 126:

Ethics does not compel you to make it a family heirloom, passing it down from generation to generation, into the distant future, when the cool kids are riding those antigravity skycycles.

2009 July 12, Randy Cohen, “Co-Worker Concerns”, in New York Times:

(science fiction) A bicycle capable of levitation.


alienlike

alienlike (comparative more alienlike, superlative most alienlike)

more alienlike (comparative)
most alienlike (superlative)

On the screen there was this creepy image: a giant head, mouth agape, with clawing hands reaching out of it, alienlike, toward the figure of a girl.

2009 July 14, Melena Ryzik, “Curtain Down, Light the Lights!”, in New York Times:

(science fiction) Resembling or characteristic of an alien.


slush pile

(publishing) The set of unsolicited manuscripts sent to a publisher.


trade paperback

en-noun

trade paperback (plural trade paperbacks)

(publishing) A softcover edition of a previously hardcover book, usually produced with the exact same text as the hardcover.

(publishing) A paperback book that is in one of the standard sizes for small paperbacks, generally for genre fiction.


NBTV

narrow-bandwidth television
w:narrow-bandwidth television

(television) Initialism of narrow-bandwidth television.


graff

Were I not hooked-up, and old enough to be her father, I'd be stalking Alyssa Rosenberg because of the following graff:[…]

2008 September 19, Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Why is Hollywood ignoring She-Hulk?”, in The Atlantic:

(slang, journalism) Alternative form of graf (“paragraph”)


lay on

en-verb

lay on (third-person singular simple present lays on, present participle laying on, simple past and past participle laid on)

lays on (present singular third-person)
laying on (participle present)
laid on (participle past)
laid on (past)

(obsolete, printing) To feed sheets in for printing one by one.


X-certificate

(film) Strictly reserved for adult viewing; pornographic.


test pattern

(US, television) A test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast.


linespace

en-noun

linespace (usually uncountable, plural linespaces)

(typography) The gap between successive lines of text.


ahegao

ahegao (countable and uncountable, plural ahegao or ahegaos)

From Japanese アヘ顔(がお) (ahegao), from アヘアヘ (aheahe, “panting”) + 顔(かお) (kao, “face”).

"The ahegao you draw is the best ever, ■■-sensei!."

2017, Takashi Kajii, My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 3, unnumbered page:

During the set of intercourse at the end of the story, Sherlock is also drawn featuring ahegao expressions, frequently used in hentai or pornographic works.

2017, Carolina Lindström, "'The power of characterization': A comparative analysis of the transformative works created by the English-language and Japanese-language fandoms of BBC Sherlock", thesis submitted to Stockholm University, page 26

Without anime I would never have been introduced to such thought provoking concepts as ahegao or 15 year old girls with boobs the size of basketballs.

2019 March 6, “Personals”, in The Medium, Rutgers University, page A6:

(chiefly Japanese fiction) An exaggerated facial expression consisting of flushed cheeks, rolled-back eyes, and the tongue hanging out, intended to depict a person having an orgasm.


cowboy shot

From the framing of cinema shots in Westerns, where the holster and gun needed to be in view along with the actor's face.

In Europe, the term plán americain or plano americano refers to a shot framed from mid-leg up, basically a cowboy shot. Beyond this we are into the realm of close-ups.

2002, Blain Brown, Cinematography, page 12:

One drawback to following an actor on stairs is that you are looking at the actor's back (and worse, emphasizing his or her behind if you are climbing the stairs in a cowboy shot).

2009, Jerry Holway, Laurie Hayball, The Steadicam Operator's Handbook, page 148:

(film) A shot framed to include a region from the actor's head to mid-thigh.


public service announcement

public service announcement (plural public service announcements)

A public service announcement followed me home the other day
 I paid it never mind, go away

2003, R.E.M. (lyrics and music), “Bad Day”, in In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003:

(broadcasting) An advertisement intended to serve the public interest by raising awareness of an issue, affecting public attitudes and potentially stimulating action.


unbold

en-verb

unbold (third-person singular simple present unbolds, present participle unbolding, simple past and past participle unbolded)

unbolds (present singular third-person)
unbolding (participle present)
unbolded (participle past)
unbolded (past)

From Middle English unbolde, unbald, from Old English unbeald (“unbold, unconfident, irresolute”), from Proto-Germanic *unbalþaz (“unbold”), equivalent to un- + bold. Cognate with Old High German unbald (“discouraged”).

inh

(typography, transitive) To change (text) from a bold typeface to a non-bolded typeface.


unbold

en-adj

unbold (comparative more unbold, superlative most unbold)

more unbold (comparative)
most unbold (superlative)


heptastich

(poetry) A seven-lined or seven-versed poem.


dochmiac

From Ancient Greek δοχμιακός (dokhmiakós, “dochmiac”), from δόχμιος (dókhmios) (see dochmius).

bor

(poetry) Pertaining to, or containing, the dochmius.


wirework

en-noun

wirework (usually uncountable, plural wireworks)

(film) The use of wires to suspend actors in otherwise impossible positions.


jetter

/ˈd͡ʒɛtə(ɹ)/

The jetter was upon us and it was a piston-powered engine.

1956, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services, Aircraft Production Costs and Profits, page 1823:

Five hundred and forty-two men moved by jetter to Colorado Springs;thence, by helicopter, to the canyon hideaway.

1958 October, Robert Bloch, “This Crowded Earth”, in Amazing Science Fiction Stories:

Kiron maneuvered the jetter around obstacles, and glided into the open ocean.

Miles' and MERC's attempts to remove a crate of fireworks from their star-jetter sends it hurtling into space, requiring the team to pursue it in the jetter with Grandmother Po Po piloting.

2019, William D. Crump, Happy Holidays--Animated!, page 177:

(often science fiction) A vehicle or engine that works by jet propulsion.


shipside

(science fiction) On a spaceship, rather than on a planet etc.


popcorn movie

Named after popcorn, a popular accompaniment to movies.

Ah well, it's a pure popcorn movie, so what do you expect? Drop Zone doesn't tax many brain cells, but it does keep the pulse pounding right to the end.

1994 December 9, “Review: Drop Zone Unbelievable, Unpretentious and Great Fun”, in News Tribune, retrieved 2011-10-29:

Spielberg calls Minority Report the most cynical film he will have made—but yes, it has a happy ending, he says, and yes, it's a popcorn movie, "but a gourmet popcorn movie."

1999 February 14, Stephen J. Dubner, “Steven the Good”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

As a movie, The Day After Tomorrow is your classic computer-generated cinematic confection, only the bad guy isn't an alien or a giant lizard, it's global warming. That gives Tomorrow a lot more political heft than your average popcorn movie.

2004 May 17, Lev Grossman, “Hollywood's Global Warming”, in Time, archived from the original on 2011-06-28:

(film, idiomatic) A motion picture without serious dramatic content, a weighty message, or intellectual depth, which serves simply as enjoyable entertainment.


moonling

From moon + -ling. Compare moon-related origins of lunacy and lunatic.

A shy moonling hangs on the suit of an astronaut and is taken back to earth.

1981, Ruth Beall Heinig, Lyda Stillwell, Creative Drama for the Classroom Teacher, page 248:

For a given walking speed, will an earthling astronaut or a moonling do less, equal, or more work when taking a stroll on the Moon, and by what factor?

2010, Michael M. Domach, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, page 204:

This, together with the 'balloon manufactured entirely of dirty newspaper' in which the dwarf/moonling descends at the tale's opening, points to some self-referential satire on behalf of Poe, a newspaperman himself.

2016, Adam Roberts, The History of Science Fiction, page 142:

(science fiction) Someone from the Moon.


backshadowing

backshadowing (countable and uncountable, plural backshadowings)

(literature) A literary device in which an author shows how an event that already occurred affects the future.


monorhyme

Until 1629 no other rhyme scheme approaches the importance of monorhyme; in 1655–1729 alternating rhyme numbers over half of the total output, and for two of the next three generations it drops down to about a third.

2013, David Malkiel, Stones Speak - Hebrew Tombstones from Padua, 1529-1862, page 36:

(poetry) A poem or rhyme scheme whose lines all end with the same rhyme.


jetcar

(science fiction) A car capable of travelling at very high speeds.


halieutics

From Latin halieuticus ("halieutic, of or about fishing"), from Ancient Greek ἁλιευτικός (halieutikós) (alieutikós, "of or about fishermen"), from ἁλιεύς (halieús, “fisherman”).

(literature) A treatise upon fish or the art of fishing.


sea king

(mythology or fiction) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: A ruler of the seas, e.g. Poseidon.


soapland

Japanese ソープランド, equivalent to soap + land.


perfecting press

perfecting press (plural perfecting presses)

(printing) A press in which the printing on both sides of the paper is completed in one passage through the machine.


novelism

novelism (countable and uncountable, plural novelisms)

(uncountable, literature) The dominance of the novel as a literary form.


underhead

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

It should almost be a lighting axiom therefore, that brilliant underhead light sources are taboo for esthetic purposes.

1931, Lighting - Volumes 20-21, page 14:

Throughout Good-Fellas, Scorsese is at great pains to remind us that we are watching a movie —there are freeze frames, over- and underhead angles, expressionist lighting (a funeral scene is scarlet), and at least one moment during which a character addresses us directly.

1994, Jay Scott, Great Scott!: The Best of Jay Scott's Movie Reviews, page 315:

Overhead and underhead lighting, especially when the lighting is hard, and is the sole illumination (i.e., no fill lights), can cast actors in an "ominous light." distorting their faces with creepy shadows, or hiding their eyes (the windows to the soul) in darkness.

2014, Thomas M. Sipos, Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear, page 151:


epodic

en-adj

epodic (comparative more epodic, superlative most epodic)

more epodic (comparative)
most epodic (superlative)

epodic forms

epodic meter

epodic literature

(poetry) Pertaining to or resembling an epode.


reverse ferret

The term originates from Kelvin MacKenzie's time at the The Sun. His preferred description of the role of journalists when it came to public figures was to "stick a ferret up their trousers". This meant making their lives uncomfortable, and was based on the northern sport of ferret-legging. However, when it became clear that the tide of public opinion had turned against the paper's line, MacKenzie would burst from his office shouting "Reverse Ferret!"

(UK media) A sudden volte-face in an organisation's editorial line on a certain issue, especially one without acknowledgment of the previous position.


aircar

(science fiction) A car capable of flight.


reptiloid

Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to ballpoint life forms.

1979 October 12, Douglas Adams, chapter 15, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, London: Pan Books, →ISBN:

(science fiction) A reptilian humanoid creature.


foreshot

It was obviously an Aspen Valley resident because she recognised the stabling in the background, but the tall dark bay horse in the foreshot didn't look familiar.

2013, Hannah Hooton, Giving Chase, →ISBN, page 122:

(photography or cinematography) The foreground of a photographic image.


backshot

If so great a commotion had been stirred up by his demand for a simple old camera backshot, there was no telling what kind of fuss would have resulted from his intention to achieve in his show the pace that distinguishes a good old-fashioned revival meeting!

1970, Albert Govoni, A Boy Named Cash, page 15:

Backshot of power station fully working.

1978, Alan Sillitoe, Three Plays, page 159:

Set in the 1930s in rural Nova Scotia, the film opens, in colour, with a backshot of the filmmaker — all that is evident are her dreads — typing its title and the details of its setting into a laptop computer.

1999, Nurjehan Aziz, Floating the Borders: New Contexts in Canadian Criticism, →ISBN, page 111:

(photography and cinematography) A shot taken from behind the subject.


ictic

(poetry) of a syllable in verse, carrying the beat.


meteorometer

By gravitometer and meteorometer readings, Curt located the few solid bodies in the cloud

2013, Edmond Hamilton, The Magician of Mars, page .:

(science fiction) A device for locating meteors.


pentastich

(poetry) Any composition consisting of five verses.


Gothamite

(fiction) An inhabitant of the fictional Gotham City, the home of the superhero Batman.


teleshow

(chiefly science fiction) a television show.


ZWNBSP

zero-width non-breaking space
w:zero-width non-breaking space

(computing, typography) Initialism of zero-width non-breaking space.


p.g.a.

post-nominal letters
post-nominal letters#English

(US, film, television) The Producer's Mark (an indicator for a member of the guild); Initialism of Producers' Guild of America. (used as post-nominal letters)


podder

Brrrtr had even sent Hrrryr, a podder. They had been born in the same pod.

2007, Samuel Blankson, The Kolumbas Affair, page 195:

'It's the essential meat gunk that is supplied to the still-living podders,' she explained.

2010, Robertski Brothers, The McAtrix Derided:

Paul says he started out as a Podder. He tried to do development deals with the Inner and Outer Systems, and he only became a renegade when he was betrayed by both.'

2013, Charles Sheffield, Proteus Unbound:

(science fiction) One who was born in or lives in a pod.


tripedal

From Latin tripedalis, from tri- + pes, pedis (“a foot”).


respeak

en-verb

respeak (third-person singular simple present respeaks, present participle respeaking, simple past respoke or (archaic, poetic) respake, past participle respoken)

respeaks (present singular third-person)
respeaking (participle present)
respoke (past)
respake (archaic past poetic)
respoken (participle past)

(television) To repeat the words of a televised person so that they can be electronically recognised and used to generate subtitles.


antistrophic

(poetry) Of or pertaining to an antistrophe.


wallcrawling

(science fiction) Having the ability to crawl upon vertical surfaces.


metallokinesis

(science fiction) The psychic ability to manipulate or control metals


bodyswap

(fiction) The act or event of two people or other thinking creatures exchanging minds (by magic, technology, or other means), so that each one ends up in the physical body of the other.


technopathy

In a shocking turn of events, the President's aid, Valerie Cooper, discovers that Reverend Stryker is actually a mutant himself with the power of technopathy – the ability to mentally manipulate machinery.

2012, Nick Spencer, Ultimate Comics X-Men by Nick Spencer Vol. 1, Marvel Entertainment, →ISBN:

Now that he was able to think, he reached out with his technopathy, searching the fishing hut. To his relief, he sensed a battery-operated light inside. He turned it on.

2019, Pittacus Lore, Into the Fire: The Legacy Chronicles, Penguin Books, →ISBN:

(science fiction) A psychic ability to control electronic machinery and/or read electronic signals, especially hardware.


starman

(science fiction) An alien; a person who comes from another star system.

(science fiction) An inhabitant of a star.


Gothic double

Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" involves a Gothic double.

(literature) An essential duality within a single character, centred on the polarity of good and evil.


brachycatalectic

(poetry) A verse that is two syllables short for a metre.


astroscope

astroscopes and other high precision optical devices

1952, Moody's Industrials - Volume 24, page 2825:

[…] refractors, catadioptric reflectors, astroscopes as well as binoculars.

1987, Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa, page 24:

I, for one, want to go back to when there were only seven planets! Before the lies of the astroscopes, telling us there are two more in the sky named Neptune and Pluto!

2012, Justin Mazzotta, Corp.Se Commander: Tactics of Corporate Warfare, page 39:

Well, think about it; we can see Rrth from here using astroscopes and the like, but the light we're seeing left Rrth many orbits ago.

They tempted him into this thing, setting out an astroscope on the hills. . .hoping to be the first ones to spot aliens!

2017, Philip Byron Philips, Towers of Royal City, page 46:

In a spacious apartment on the third floor which contained two powerful telescopes, constructed on principles of entirely modern invention, being capable of revealing the distant suns to an extent never before dreamt of, was Mercia surrounded by curious astroscopes, stellar-spectroscopes, and wonderfully constructed cameras, which delineated in an instant the starry heights, the glory of which has been the ambition of astronomers in all ages to fathom.

2023, A. Garland Mears, Mercia, the astronomer royal:

(chiefly science fiction) A telescope powerful enough to see astronomical bodies.


homiform

In the homiform frame embruted, to the classes of the grades

1883, George Thomas May, The Ever-living Life:

The droids belonging to the renegade faction were slaves, despite often having superior intellect and physical prowess, “athletic” capabilities (at least this was so with many of the homiform “androids”)

2013, Dean Vyas, Pastimes of the Unseen:

(obsolete, rare or science fiction) In human form.


slow news day

Perhaps you have seen a television news program on a slow news day. In place of international crises, press conferences, congressional hearings, and proclamations by the mayor, the news may consist of a trip to the zoo to visit a new “baby,” a canned report on acupuncture in China, a follow-up story on the survivor of an air crash, or a visit to the opening of baseball spring training in Florida.

2016, W. Lance Bennett, chapter 5, in News: The Politics of Illusion, 10th edition, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 136:

(journalism) A time when media organizations publish trivial stories due to the lack of more substantial topics.


skywave

(radio) An electromagnetic wave refracted back to the Earth by the ionosphere.


Long Primer

Initially from primer (“prayer book”) from its use in those volumes in Protestant England. The qualifier was subsequently added to distinguish it from great primer and may derive from early editions published on long duodecimo paper.

(printing, dated) The size of type between bourgeois and small pica, standardized as 10-point.


ditrochee

(poetry) A double trochee; a metrical foot made up of two trochees.


tetracolon

en-noun

tetracolon (plural tetracolons or tetracola)

the two verses would form a beautiful tetracolon, the first line answering to the third, and the second to the fourth

1791, Henry Dimock, Notes Critical and Explanatory:

(poetry) A stanza or division in lyric poetry, consisting of four verses or lines.


agency pricing

(publishing) A pricing system in which a supplier sets the price charged for their product by a reseller, with the reseller contractually positioned as an agent of the supplier rather than as an independent broker between supplier and consumer.


newhalf

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

Calque of Japanese ニューハーフ (nyūhāfu, “new half”). ニューハーフ is wasei eigo, from English.

calque

(anime, manga, slang) A character with a female body but only male genitals.


Q code

(radio) code used as a shorthand for common messages, consisting of sequences all beginning with Q

(radio) specific code from the aforementioned set


RST code

Standing for Readability, Strength and (for nonvoice communication) Tone.

(radio) A code used to express the quality of a radio signal being received.


QRM

(uncountable, radio jargon) electromagnetic interference


DX

(radio) Long-distance contact with or reception of a distant radio station.


DX

en-verb

DX (third-person singular simple present DXs, present participle DXing, simple past and past participle DXed)

DXs (present singular third-person)
DXing (participle present)
DXed (participle past)
DXed (past)

(radio) To receive and identify a long-distance broadcast, such as one by a distant AM, FM, or TV broadcast station.


gravo-acute accent

en-noun

gravo-acute accent (plural not attested)

/ˌɡɹɑːvəʊəˈkjuːt ˈæksənt/

Mr. Walker does triumphantly claim the discovery of the inverted circumflex accent, or the downward and upward continued movement. Yet, if it is correctly inferred from the dates of publication, and from Mr. Walker’s rather derisive allusion to Mr. Steele’s essay, that the latter author preceded him, he might have found, in Mr. Steele’s gravo-acute accent, proof of the real existence of his newly found function of the voice.

1827, James Rush, The Philosophy of the Human Voice, pages ix–x:

( ˘ ) Gravo-acute accent, or gravo-acute circumflex.

1841, Andrew Comstock, “Explanation of the characters used in the exercises in reading and declamation”, in A System of Elocution, page 200:

(phonology and typography, obsolete, rare) A dipping tone, or the diacritic that denotes it, similar in form to the breve (˘) and the háček (ˇ).


inverted circumflex

inverted circumflex (plural inverted circumflexes)

From its earliest attested use as an idiomatic phrase in 1810, inverted circumflex was first used to denote a dipping tone — an inversion of the peaking tone denoted by ⟨῀⟩, the Ancient Greek περισπωμένη (perispōménē), commonly translated as “circumflex” — thence the name was applied to diacritics which marked such a dipping tone and, by extension, other tones to which it was suited; finally, due to such a diacritic’s resemblance to the háček, the name came to be applied to it as well.

This rising inflection will be indicated by an inverted circumflex ( ˇ ) being placed over the last syllable in the clause that bears the primary accent.

1844, An Introduction to the Art of Reading, page 107:

(typography) Any diacritic obtained by rotating a circumflex (ˆ) 180°.


isochronon

A bedside isochronon diffused a soft-light 9:30

1980, Felix C. Gotschalk, “The Wishes of Maidens”, in George R. R. Martin, editor, New Voices III: The Campbell Award Nominees, page 175:

(chiefly science fiction) A clock designed to keep very accurate time.


pentapody

From penta- + -pody, from Ancient Greek πέντε (pénte, “five”) and πούς, ποδός (poús, podós, “foot”).

(poetry) A measure or series consisting of five feet.


Kubrickologist

From Kubrick + -ologist, from the surname of American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and photographer Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999).

Though I do not wish to get bogged down in minutiae of interest only to fanatical Kubrickologists […]

2000, Stephanie Schwam, The Making of 2001, A Space Odyssey, page 42:

(film) One who studies the works of Stanley Kubrick; one who studies Kubrickology.


Kubrickology

From Kubrick + -ology, from the surname of American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and photographer Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999).

Room 237, which got a boost in funding from Kickstarter and its name from the iconic mysterious room in Kubrick’s film, brings together five separate theorists to form an impressive body of work of Kubrickology […]

2012 January 30, Angela Watercutter, “Room 237 explores hidden meanings in The Shining”, in Wired, archived from the original on 2014-02-17:

Next week, Channel 4 starts a season of classic Kubrick films. It opens, on June 20, with Paul Joyce's fascinating documentary, Stanley Kubrick: The Invisible Man, which includes rare footage of Kubrick directing – from his daughter Vivian's The Making of The Shining – and imports a new irreverence, not to say hostility, into Kubrickology.

1996, Quentin Curtis, “Enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an anorak ...”, in The Daily Telegraph, London, archived from the original on 2015-10-04:

(film) The study of the works of Stanley Kubrick.


mismeter

en-verb

mismeter (third-person singular simple present mismeters, present participle mismetering, simple past and past participle mismetered)

mismeters (present singular third-person)
mismetering (participle present)
mismetered (participle past)
mismetered (past)

(transitive, poetry) To give the wrong meter to, as to a line of verse.


posthouse

Slow motion, fades, wipes, and text — once only affordable for major broadcasters and posthouses — now allowed DIY video producers a more polished, professional look.

2013, Jesse Drew, A Social History of Contemporary Democratic Media, page 57:

(film, television) A company that carries out post-production.


Mistralian

en-adj

Mistralian (comparative more Mistralian, superlative most Mistralian)

more Mistralian (comparative)
most Mistralian (superlative)

After Frédéric Mistral; likely calqued from French mistralien or from Mistral + -ian. First used by Joseph Roumanille in 1853.

(literature) Of or pertaining to Frédéric Mistral


word space

(typography, word processing) A regular space between words, as contrasted with other kinds of spaces.


hook above

(typography) A tone mark ( ̉) that indicates falling then rising tone in Vietnamese.


Blochian

Blochian (comparative more Blochian, superlative most Blochian)

more Blochian (comparative)
most Blochian (superlative)

(literature) Of or relating to Robert Bloch (1917-1994), American writer, primarily of crime, horror, and science fiction.


cynanthropy

Coined based on Ancient Greek κύων (kúōn, “dog”) and ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos, “man; human”).

(anthropology, folklore) A shape-shifting ability between human and canine forms.


epitrite

Compare French épitrite, Latin epitritus, Ancient Greek ἐπίτριτος (epítritos).

(poetry, Ancient Greek and Latin prosody) A metrical foot consisting of three long syllables and one short syllable.


semiped

From Latin semipes, semipedis, from semi- (“half”) + pes, pedis (“a foot”).


smart quotes

(computing, typography) Curly quotes automatically inserted into text as a replacement for the straight quotes typed by the user.


tiercet

(poetry) A triplet; three lines, or three lines rhyming together.


scaleboard

During the time it is working down , the head and winter will require an additional scaleboard now and then , which will be ascertained by observing whether the pull produces an adequate impression

1808, Caleb Stower, The Compositor's and Pressman's Guide to the Art of Printing:

(obsolete, printing) A thin slip of wood used to justify a page.


teleportal

(science fiction) A teleporter; a device for instantaneous travel.


mislight

This error is obviated to a large degree when the perforated strip arrangement is used. If a machine is threaded properly and has made one correct print, it is impossible for a mislight to occur if the machine is set properly before the motor switch is snapped on,

1953, William H. Offenhauser, 16-mm Sound Motion Pictures, page 403:

Notches weaken the negative, and tabs sometimes come off, causing mislights.

1976, SMPTE Journal: Publication of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers:

(film) An error in projection in which the projected image is a combination of two frames.


Ariostan

Ariostan (comparative more Ariostan, superlative most Ariostan)

more Ariostan (comparative)
most Ariostan (superlative)

(poetry) Characteristic of the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533).


proceleusmatic

Latin proceleusmaticus, from Ancient Greek προκελευσματικός (prokeleusmatikós), to rouse to action beforehand, to incite.

uder

προκελευσματικός

(poetry) A metrical foot consisting of four short syllables.


proceleusmatic

en-adj

proceleusmatic (comparative more proceleusmatic, superlative most proceleusmatic)

more proceleusmatic (comparative)
most proceleusmatic (superlative)

uder

προκελευσματικός

(poetry, not comparable) Consisting of four short syllables; composed of metrical feet of four short syllables each.


typographic ligature

en-noun

typographic ligature (plural typographic ligatures)

ae (a + e) > æ
AE (A + E) > Æ
db (d + b) > ȸ
dz (d + z) > ǳ
Dz (D + z) > ǲ
DZ (D + Z) > Ǳ
et (e + t) > &
ff (f + f) > ﬀ
ffi (ﬀ + ﬁ) > ﬃ
ffl (ﬀ + ﬂ) > ﬄ
fi (f + i) > ﬁ
fl (f + l) > ﬂ
fs (f + s) > ?
ft (f + t) > ?
ij (i + j) > ĳ
IJ (I + J) > Ĳ
lj (l + j) > ǉ
Lj (L + j) > ǈ
LJ (L + J) > Ǉ
ng (n + g) > ŋ
NG (N + G) > Ŋ
nj (n + j) > ǌ
Nj (N + j) > ǋ
NJ (N + J) > Ǌ
oe (o + e) > œ
OE (O + E) > Œ or ɶ
ou (o + u) > Ȣ (majiscule) or ȣ (minuscule)
qp (q + p) > ȹ
ſs (ſ + s) or ſz (ſ + z) > ß (ẞ when capitalized)
st (s + t) > ﬆ
ſt (ſ + t) > ﬅ
ue (u + e) > ᵫ

(countable, typography) A character that visually combines multiple letters, usually but not always by connecting them (making them contiguous), such as æ, œ, ß or ĳ; a logotype.


subfont

Two subfonts are available for EGA/VGA displays, and only one is available for LCD displays.

2001, Jim Cooper, Using MS-DOS 6.22, page 346:

(computing, typography) A subset of a font, holding only some of its glyphs.


double-page spread

double-page spread (plural double-page spreads)

(journalism) An article, advertisement, etc. spread over two facing pages.


death star

From death + star: star as in satellite; death as in the decimation of an industry. Influenced by the Death Star base in Star Wars media.

satellite television
satellite television

cable television
cable television#English

digital satellite television
digital satellite television#English

(slang, colloquial, Canada, US, television, dated) a direct-to-home satellite television satellite (used by the cable television provider industry, to describe their competitors and the effect they would have in decimating the cable industry, prior to the introduction of digital satellite television and the three-foot dish revolution)


diiambus

(poetry) A double iambus; a metrical foot consisting of two iambs.


rounce

Compare French ronce (“bramble, brier, thorn”), ranche (“a round, step, rack”), or English round.

(printing) The handle by which the bed of a hand press, holding the form of type, etc., is run in under the platen and out again.

(printing) The whole apparatus by which the form is moved under the platen.


stickful

stickful (plural stickfuls or sticksful)

That first morning it took me half an hour to set my first stickful, a dozen lines.

1970, Hal Borland, Country editor's boy, page 55:

Stickful after stickful is placed on this galley, until it also is full.

1980, John Southward, Practical Printing: A Handbook to the Art of Typography, page 82:

Football stories may be divided into three general classes: the brief summary story of a stickful or a trifle more; the usual football story of a half column or less; and the long story that may be run through a column or more, depending upon the importance of the game.

2009, Phillip J. Morledge, Getting the Scoop:

(printing, dated) As much type as fills a composing stick.


supralinear

(typography) above the lines of normal text


spaceway

At first Gallagher and his glacier were a roar of laughter that swept the spaceways[…]

1964, John Wood Campbell, Analog science fact/science fiction:

(science fiction) A route used for travel or shipping in outer space.


teleportage

At the same time there is no fantasy, as there is in the teleportage of science fiction, or in the Greek myth that requires the insemination of a woman by a swan.

2010, Jeffrey Boss, Human Consciousness of God in the Book of Job, page 158: