superpower

en-noun

superpower (countable and uncountable, plural superpowers)

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

Administered in such a way, in that superpowers it assures.

1994, C. J. Lee, Caldwell Lee the Poet to Be: The Forthright Omnipotence Era, Dorrance Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 46:

This is his superpower, I think. The comic geek always has one, and Oliver's is a poker face that would leave even the Holy Trinity guessing what he's thinking.

2014, Christina Lauren, Dirty Rowdy Thing, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 258:

If I could have a superpower id^([sic]) want to be able to teleport. I hate walking and driving gives me headaches.

2021 December 6, Givinuplol, belugasareneat, “What superpower you would like?”, in reddit.com:

(countable, fiction) An extraordinary physical or mental ability, especially possessed by a superhero or supervillain.


orientalism

orientalism (countable and uncountable, plural orientalisms)

From French orientalisme, from oriental (“eastern, Oriental”). Equivalent to Oriental + -ism.

(art, architecture, literature) The tendency to represent eastern subjects, to assume stylistical characteristics original of the East.

اِسْتِشْراق

the tendency to represent eastern subjects


mannerism

mannerism (countable and uncountable, plural mannerisms)

From Italian manierismo, from maniera, coined by Luigi Lanzi at the end of the 18ᵗʰ century.

/ˈmænəˌɹɪzəm/

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

(art, literature) In literature, an ostentatious and unnatural style of the second half of the sixteenth century. In the contemporary criticism, described as a negation of the classicist equilibrium, pre-Baroque, and deforming expressiveness.

(art, literature) In fine art, a style that is inspired by previous models, aiming to reproduce subjects in an expressive language.


conceited

en-adj

conceited (comparative more conceited or (informal) conceiteder, superlative most conceited or (informal) conceitedest)

more conceited (comparative)
conceiteder (comparative informal)
most conceited (superlative)
conceitedest (informal superlative)

Conceited wit showed its character towards the end of the fifteenth century in the work of poets who made it their aim to exercise their hearers' minds with cleaver plays of metaphor and ingenious reasoning.

2006, A. J. Smith, Metaphysical Wit, page 20:

(rhetoric, literature) Having an ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device.


bioroid

(science fiction) A cybernetic or fully biological organism created by artificial means.

genetically engineered
genetic engineering

(science fiction) A genetically engineered humanoid-like organism created for the purpose of enslavement.


ductus

Borrowed from Latin ductus (“leading, conducting”, noun). Doublet of duct and douit.

bor

the number of strokes that make up a written letter, and the direction, sequence and speed in which they are written (Compare graph; see also aspect.)

a subtle reduction of weight towards the middle of the stroke of the letter


polyphony

en-noun

polyphony (countable and uncountable, plural polyphonies)

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πολυφωνία (poluphōnía); equivalent to poly- + -phony.

lbor

the polyphony of a biblical passage

(literature) The quality of a text of being able to be read in more than one way.


diacritical mark

en-noun

diacritical mark (plural diacritical marks)

(orthography, typography) A symbol in writing used with a letter to indicate a different pronunciation, stress, tone, or meaning.


acute accent

From Latin accentus (“accent”) acūtus (“sharp”), a calque of Ancient Greek προσῳδία (prosōidía, “accent”) ὀξύς (oxús, “sharp”).
Cognate to French accent aigu.

der

(orthography): A diacritical mark ( ´ ) that can be placed above a number of letters in many languages of the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic writing systems.


Ionian

* (Hellenic, Ionia, architecture): Ionia + -n
* (moon of Jupiter): Io + -n- + -ian

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Io, a moon of Jupiter


Oompa Loompa

Apparently a fanciful formation in line with whimsical English words like fuzzy-wuzzy, Humpty Dumpty, etc. Perhaps reminiscent of "exotic" ethnonyms to Westerners; note Roald Dahl spent time in Tanganyika, East Africa, during his service in the Royal Air Force. Also compare oom-pah (“genre of German folk music”) (the Oompa Loompas dance to quirky, rhythmic songs).

Dr. Evil: Is he giving off too much of a creepy Umpa Lumpa vibe? / What’s wrong, Mini-Me?

1999 June, Mike Myers, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, New Line Cinema

Nobody, not even an Umpa Lumpa, had warned me what would happen to a blind guy who refuses to close his eyes.

2006, Ryan Knighton, Cockeyed, A Memoir, page 152:

It could be worse, but I've learned to become invisible to Machiavellian dilettantes, faux radical Satanistas, and bloodsucking Oompa-Loompas of the painfully ordinary variety.

2006, Adrian C. Louis, Logorrhea, Northwestern University Press,, →ISBN, page 44:

[Referring to the male member] It's not one of the Muppets or an Umpa Lumpa.

2006, Sherry Argov, Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart, page 89:

Don’t be afraid to write your name in the books and on the pans that were yours before you found yourself sharing a studio apartment that would normally not be big enough for an Oompa-Loompa.

2006, Anna Jane Grossman, Flint Wainess, It’s Not Me, It’s You: The Ultimate Breakup Book, page 129:

Nevertheless, some subtle market forces are at work which pressure the canny shopkeeper into giving up valuable shelf space to the contents of an Oompa Loompa’s cocktail cabinet.

2006, Simon Trewin and Michael Moran, The Encyclopaedia of Guilty Pleasures, John Murray, page unknown

For women with skin of color, it's so, so important to get the shade and tone right. If it's wrong, you can look incredibly ashy, or like an Oompa Loompa.

2006, Iman, The Beauty of Color: The Ultimate Beauty Guide for Skin of Color, page 34:

The men[…]have gone way overboard with the spray-on tan. They’re as orange as Oompa Loompas, and they stare at my boobs for a very long time before acknowledging me.

2007, Meta Smith, Queen of Miami, Hachette Digital, →ISBN:

I don't know who decided all porn actors must be the same shade of orange as Oompa Loompas.

2009, Reverend Jen, Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen, Counterpoint Press, →ISBN, page 172:

Dahl insisted there was no racist intent behind the Oompa Loompas but also said he found himself sympathising with the NAACP.

2017 September 13, Haroon Siddique, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hero 'was originally black'”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(fiction) Any of the fictional pygmies who manufacture candy in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.


dilithium

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

Fifty years later and it seems like we should—I don’t know if dilithium crystals are out there—but, you know, we should be getting some breakthroughs.

2016 October, Scott Dadich, quoting Barack Obama, “Barack Obama Talks AI, Robo Cars, and the Future of the World”, in Wired, →ISSN:

(science fiction) A fictional crystalline mineral in the Star Trek franchise, described as an essential component of anti-matter energy generation systems.


mora

From Latin mora (“duration of time, delay”).

In the quantitative meters in Sanskrit a heavy syllable is considered to be equal to two morae and a light syllable equivalent to one mora.

1918, Elcanon Isaacs, “The Metrical Basis of Hebrew Poetry”, in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, volume 35, page 22:

(poetry) A unit used to measure lines and stanzas of poetry.


silver bullet

(literally, folklore) A bullet made of silver, usually with reference to the folkloric belief that such bullets are the only weapons which can kill a werewolf, vampire, or other monster.


doublet

From Middle English doublet, a borrowing from Old French doublet, from double, duble, doble + -et.

zeke

(historical in English) a man’s waistcoat

(literature) In textual criticism, two different narrative accounts of the same actual event.

szövegismétlődés

literature: in textual criticism, two different narrative accounts of the same actual event


Igor

From the hunchbacked lab assistant to Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the 1931 U.S. film Frankenstein of Universal Studios, which was named "Fritz", and the successor to Dr. Frankenstein found in the third and fourth films, named "Ygor"; which have been conflated in popular culture to become "Igor".

(fiction) A stock character, the lab assistant to a mad scientist, vampire, or miser frequently depicted as being deformed in some manner, physically and/or psychologically.


juvenilia

From Latin iuvenīlia, neuter plural of iuvenīlis (“of or pertaining to youth”).

...rhyme was not his [Milton's] talent; he had neither the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it: which is manifest in his "Juvenilia" or verses written in his youth, where his rhyme is always constrained and forced,...

1693, John Dryden, A Discourse on the Origin and Progress of Satire:

Lewis’s juvenilia is childlike, and the way it has been handled is childish.

1996, Kathryn Lindskoog, Light in the Shadowlands:

Though there is a large body of criticism on Brontë’s novels, there are very few interpretations of the juvenilia, […]

1997, Tomoko Kuribayashi with Julie Tharp edd., quoting Susan Anne Carlson, “Incest and Rage in Charlotte Brontë’s Novelettes,”, quoted in Creating Safe Space,:

The last line, adapted from Coleridge, reminds us that we are never such kleptomaniacs as in our juvenilia.

2003, James Fenton, The Strength of Poetry:

(chiefly literature) Works produced during an artist's or author's youth.


catalectic

From Latin catalecticus, from Ancient Greek καταληκτικός (katalēktikós, “leaving off, incomplete”) from κατά (katá, “down, wholly”) + ληκτικός (lēktikós, “causing to stop”).

uder

καταληκτικός

(poetry) A line with incomplete meter, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot.


introverted

en-adj

introverted (comparative more introverted, superlative most introverted)

more introverted (comparative)
most introverted (superlative)

In the Quatrain Reversed or Introverted, the first line corresponds with the fourth.

1896, Richard Green Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible, page 50:

(poetry, literature) Arranged so that two similar words, lines, etc. form the middle of the structure.


englyn

The concluding Englyn has written below it, in a very bad and quite different hand, "Dauid (or Daniel?) Davies," but whether this name is that of the supposed author of the Englynion, or that of one of the owners of the MS., we cannot say.

1892, F[rancis] T[urner] Palgrave, “Henry Vaughan of Scethrog, 1622–1695: Some Notes on His Life and Characteristics as a Poet of Welsh Descent”, in Egerton Phillimore, editor, Y Cymmrodor: The Magazine of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, volume XI, London: Printed for the Society [Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion] by Gilbert & Rivington, Limited, St. John's House, Clerkenwell, London, E.C., page 222:

The metrical system of the canine original, which recalls the intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has been well caught.

1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses: A Novel, Paris: Shakespeare and Company; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483, page 299

The englyn as we know it in Canu Llywarch Hen and Elegy on Cynddylan is characterized by three lines with end rhyme.

1993, Sarah Lynn Higley, Between Languages: The Uncooperative Text in Early Welsh and Old English Nature Poetry, University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, →ISBN:

(poetry) A short Welsh or Cornish poem of a variable structure, with each line using quantitative metre and cynghanedd (a repeating pattern of consonants and accent), and different lines being arranged in standardized patterns of rhyme and half rhyme.


suspended animation

(science fiction) The deliberate slowing of the body's functions, sometimes by the use of cryonics, on long interstellar journeys.


ottava

From Italian ottava (“octave”) (also feminine form of ottavo (“eighth”), ordinal form of otto).


time warp

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

But as the reports on the Bild investigation suggest, the company’s workplace culture may be stuck in a time warp.

2021 October 17, Ben Smith, “At Axel Springer, Politico’s New Owner, Allegations of Sex, Lies and a Secret Payment”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(science fiction) A hypothetical discontinuity in the flow of time that would uncausally move events from one time period to another.


time warp

en-verb

time warp (third-person singular simple present time warps, present participle time warping, simple past and past participle time warped)

time warps (present singular third-person)
time warping (participle present)
time warped (participle past)
time warped (past)

(science fiction, transitive, intransitive) To travel through time in such a manner.


pyrokinesis

(parapsychology, fantasy, science fiction) The ability to set objects or people on fire or to supernaturally project fire from one's own being through the concentration of psychic power.

控火

the ability to set objects or people on fire


wirehead

(science fiction) A person who has an electronic brain implant.


prosody

en-noun

prosody (countable and uncountable, plural prosodies)

From Middle French prosodie, from Latin prosōdia, from Ancient Greek προσῳδία (prosōidía, “song sung to music; pronunciation of syllable”), from πρός (prós, “to”) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”).

der

But the system of prosody in Samson plainly forbids extrametrical syllables in the midst of the line, and there is certainly no other example.

1894, Robert Bridges, Milton's Prosody, Oxford University Press, page 30:

(poetry) The study of poetic meter; the patterns of sounds and rhythms in verse.


bathos

en-noun

bathos (usually uncountable, plural bathoses)

Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάθος (báthos, “depth”). Employed ironically following Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, lampooning various errors in contemporary writers.

bathos

unintentional failure at artistic effect

(literature, the arts) Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:

anticlimax: an abrupt transition in style or subject from high to low.

banality: unaffectingly clichéd or trite treatment of a topic.

immaturity: lack of serious treatment of a topic.

While a plain and direct Road is pav'd to their ὐψος, or sublime; no Track has been yet chalk'd out to arrive at our βάθος, or profund.

(literature, the arts) The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.


chibi

chibi (countable and uncountable, plural chibis)

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

Borrowed from Japanese ちび (chibi, “something small; runt, dwarf; pipsqueak”)

bor+

(countable) A child-like character with exaggerated features, particularly in anime.

Since the eyes take up so much room on the chibi face, the head needs to be stretched and, therefore, usually ends up being oval-shaped to accommodate the oval-shaped eyes.

2013, Christopher Hart, Manga for the Beginner:

(uncountable) A style of cartooning in which the characters are drawn to be very small and cute.


adaptation

en-noun

adaptation (countable and uncountable, plural adaptations)

/ˌædæpˈteɪʃən/

From French adaptation, from Medieval Latin adaptātiō, from Latin adaptō (“I fit, adjust, modify; I adapt, fit or adjust to”); see adapt. Equivalent to adapt + -ation.

der

Having partly a bibliographic value, and partly confirming the statements above as to Balzac's influence, the following details concerning theatrical adaptations of some of his novels may serve as a supplement to this chapter.

(countable, authorship) An artistic work that has been adapted from a different medium.


lolicon

en-noun

lolicon (usually uncountable, plural lolicons)

Borrowed from Japanese ロリコン (rorikon), clipping of ロリータ・コンプレックス (“Lolita complex”), from the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita and English complex (not from English Lolita complex, which comes from the Japanese term). Lolita comes from Spanish Lolita, diminutive of Lola, from the given name Dolores. By surface analysis, loli + -con (“abnormal sexual attraction”).

clipping

ロリータ・コンプレックス

surf

Innocence’s story—about female sex androids that kill their owners—is possible only in a Lolicon country like Japan. The androids are modeled after little girls[.]

2004, Patrick Macias, Tomohiro Machiyama, Cruising The Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo, Stone Bridge Press, page 48:

A Japanese term derived from the English phrase “Lolita complex,” lolicon describes a fascination with cartoons of very young-looking girls engaged in varying degrees of erotic behavior.

2014 October 15, Matt Alt, “Pharrell Williams’s Lolicon Video”, in The New Yorker:

(uncountable, anime and manga) Attraction (often erotic) to young, typically prepubescent girls, or the fictional depictions thereof.

I don't need to hear you are becoming a lolicon.

1993 October 29, "Eldrick Tobin, Master of Perversion" (username), "The Arc: Joyful Noise Omakefic Unit 01: Sentenced: A Fanboys! Crossover "jnomk01.txt" (1/1)", in alt.hentai.sailor-moon, Usenet

Ken's a lolicon (pedophile).

1998 March 9, Chadwick Ngan, “BLAND Manga Capsules 3/4/98”, in rec.arts.manga (Usenet):

Hey, don't take me for a lolicon: I'm not! It is just that I find that kind of anime... fun, refreshing.

2000 July 6, OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol, “:: chokes :: :: passes out ::”, in alt.hentai.sailor-moon (Usenet):

I like lolis, I consider myself a lolicon, but I'm not attracted to real children. Your argument fails immediately there since most lolicons are not attracted to real children. Am I a pedophile?

2016 July 14, Aiko_Hiroshi, Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! Episode 2 Discussion:

Let me say it again, lolicon and pedo are a different thing. japanese people are just saying it lolicon because in their mind, they already implanted the word of lolicon as pedo, but in anime community, pedo and lolicon are a different thing. why make it different ? so that we can see the difference from people who likes "fictional" little girl and from people who likes "real" little girl.

2016 July 15, YizelTro, Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! Episode 2 Discussion:

(countable, anime and manga) An individual who is attracted to underage girls.

If you are into bishojo, loli-con, or bishonen materials, be advised that customs *does* frown on what might be considered pornography.

1989 September 23, Mark Crispin, “bringing stuff into the US from Japan”, in soc.culture.japan (Usenet):

the whole gamut of lolicon and girls-with-guns genres

1993 March 27, Rafael Brown, “Anime Potrayal of Japanese Women”, in rec.arts.anime (Usenet):

Some critics of lolicon claim that those who enjoy it also necessarily enjoy real child porn […]

2006, Lawrence Eng, Otaku Engagements: subcultural appropriation of science and technology, page 168:

Bizarrely, viewing and collecting lolicon seems to have become a subcultural norm, especially in Japan, […]

2010, Sarah D. Goode, Understanding and Addressing Adult Sexual Attraction to Children: a Study of Paedophiles in Contemporary Society, page 29:

Most importantly, because German child pornography and child abuse laws forbid representation of children as sexual objects, there is a complete ban on shota or lolicon.

2010, Paul M. Malone, “From BRAVO to Animexx.de to Export”, in Boys’ Love Manga, page 33:

(uncountable, anime and manga) Erotic or suggestive artwork depicting underage girls.


neo

Ken Bulmer pointed out that the attitude of a fan who had read much sf is different from that of a neo who is reading sf for the first time.

1964 April 2, Bennett Ron, Skyrack, number 65:

This fabulous fannish cover illustrated the three stages of fandom: the neo, the trufan, and the BNF.

1976 August 25, Ian Maule, Checkpoint, number 72:

Edwina, and neofen of her generation (this is not a criticism - everyone starts out as a neo), being new to sffandom, and not a member of faandom, would not have noticed this.

1996 November 3, Richard J. Faulder, Gegenschein, number 80:

(dated, fandom slang, science fiction) Clipping of neofan.


episodic

en-adj

episodic (comparative more episodic, superlative most episodic)

more episodic (comparative)
most episodic (superlative)

[ˌɛp.ɪˈsɑ.ɾɪk]

From episode + -ic. Compare French épisodique.

I just read five attempts at episodic novels — has nobody heard of a plot anymore?

(literature) Consisting of a sequence of seemingly unconnected episodes.


clustering

(writing) A prewriting technique consisting of writing ideas down on a sheet of paper around a central idea within a circle, with the related ideas radially joined to the circle using rays.


battlecruiser

Blend of battleship + cruiser, from being a cruiser-like ship with battleship-like capabilities and possibly operating in the battleline.

(fiction) A warship of intermediate size and/or capability between a heavy cruiser and a (light) battleship.


teleplay

(authorship) A script formatted like a screenplay for cinema, but written to be made into an episode of a television show.


decima

Borrowed from Spanish décima, from Latin decima (“a tenth”). Doublet of decim, decime, and dime.

His album... dealt with the song form of Puerto Rican back-country troubadours, and it had a preoccupation with... the décima, a 10-line stanza with specific rhyme schemes.

(poetry) A 10-line verse or stanza, (chiefly) in the form of a song comprising an introductory verse followed by four such divisions.


flashback

→ German: Flashback

→ Spanish: flashback

→ Norwegian: flashback

→ Portuguese: flashback

(authorship) A dramatic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological flow of a narrative.

salt enrere

a dramatic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological flow of a narrative


envoy

From French envoyé (“envoy, messenger”), from envoyer (“send”).

(poetry) Alternative spelling of envoi (“short stanza at end of poem”)


screenplay

Coordinate term: radioplay

I know Corinne would be happy if I started writing scripts again. Since my last screenplay, I haven't written anything in over four months.

(authorship, cinematography) A script for a movie or a television show; especially, the former specifically.


macaronic

macaronic (comparative more macaronic, superlative most macaronic)

more macaronic (comparative)
most macaronic (superlative)

/ˌmækəˈɹɑnɪk/

From New Latin, 1517 coinage, macaronicus, from Italian (Neapolitan dialect) maccarone (“coarse dumpling”).

(literature) Written in a hodgepodge mixture of two or more languages.


macaronic

/ˌmækəˈɹɑnɪk/

(literature) A work of macaronic character.


frigate

From French frégate, from Italian fregata.

Frigates are light escort and scouting vessels. They often have extensive GARDIAN systems to provide anti-fighter screening for capital ships, and carry a squad of marines for security and groundside duty. Unlike larger vessels, frigates are able to land on planets.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Starships: Frigates Codex entry:

(fiction) A warship or space warship, inspired by one of the many historic varieties of frigate.


empathic

empathic (comparative more empathic, superlative most empathic)

more empathic (comparative)
most empathic (superlative)

(science fiction) Of, pertaining to, or being an empath: of or having the capability of sensing the emotions of others.


baria

(orthography and typography) An Ancient Greek pitch-marking diacritic: ⟨ ` ⟩; written atop vowels, it denotes normal or low pitch.


háček

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-háček.wav

First attested in 1951; from the Czech háček (“háček”, literally “little hook”), the diminutive of hák (“hook”) (from Middle High German hāken, from Old High German hāko (“hook”), from Proto-Germanic *hakô (“hook”), from Proto-Indo-European *keg-, *keng- (“peg, hook”)) + the diminutive suffix -ek. Cognate with and formed like English hooklet and German Häkchen. Also cognate with Old English haca (“hook, door-fastening”) and modern English hake (more information below).

cog

The caret (ˇ), háček, is used over the following consonants: c, d, n, t, r, s, and z to indicate the soft sound.

1948, Bohumil Emil Mikula, Progressive Czech (Bohemian), page 6:

Linguistic forms had to be set in ordinary roman type and the capital C of Cäxa had to be left without a háček.

1951, Hans Jakob Polotsky, Notes on Gurage Grammar, page 5:

Good Teutonic Kitsch looks rather forlorn and out of place wearing a Bohemian háček over its shrunken hind quarters. But the high traditions of scholarship must be maintained, and on these pages Meester Kitsch will masquerade as Mr. Kič.

1956, Morris Halle, editor, For Roman Jakobson, page 332:

In the system used here and elsewhere in this article for Bantu tone, low syllables are unmarked, high syllables have an acute accent, and rising syllables a haček respectively; thus a, á, ǎ.

1966, Charles Ernest Bazell et al., editors, In Memory of J.R. Firth, page 205:

The printer had no hatchek — the flattened “v” that appears over letters in Czech — to put over Dvořak’s R. So somebody laboriously inked in all the hatcheks.

1991, Peter Hugh Reed, American Record Guide, LIV:ii, page 69:

háček used to signify the third tone (wǔ — ‘five’)

2002, Torbjörn Lundmark, Quirky QWERTY, page 34:

Another orthographic practice […] was developed […] in the twentieth century: this is the adoption of the hacek for the representation of the Cypriot postalveolar fricatives and affricates, which are otherwise not distinguished by the normal characters of the Greek alphabet alone. It was not until very recently, therefore, that the spellings <σ̌>, <τσ̌>, <ζ̌> and <τζ̌>, for [ʃ], [tʃ], [ʒ] and [dʒ] respectively, became available.

2005, Stavroula Varella, Language Contact and the Lexicon in the History of Cypriot Greek, page 46:

My father always wrote Bětik with a little “v” called haĉek, above the “e”; Marušaks placed the haĉek above the “s”.

2006, Mary Betik Trojacek, Beyond Ellis Island, page 17:

For examples of the usage of other forms of this term see Citations:háček, Citations:haček, Citations:hacek, Citations:haċek, Citations:hachek, Citations:hatcheck, Citations:hatschek, Citations:hǎcek, Citations:hatchek, Citations:hacheck, Citations:hac̬ek, Citations:haczek, Citations:háçek, Citations:hácek, Citations:haĉek, Citations:haceck and Citations:háčky.

diacritical mark
diacritical mark#English

(orthography and typography) A caron; a diacritical mark (ˇ) usually resembling an inverted circumflex, but in the cases of ď, Ľ, ľ, and ť resembling a prime (′) instead.

Ǎǎ Čč Ďď Ěě Ǧǧ Ȟȟ Ǐǐ J̌ǰ Ǩǩ Ľľ Ňň Ǒǒ Řř Šš Ťť Ǔǔ Ǚǚ Žž Ǯǯ DŽDždž Ǆǅǆ

acute accent

diacritics used in Latin-derived scripts

comma

above right ( ̕); below ( ̦), reversed (ʽ), turned (ʻ)

hook

above ( ̉); palatal ( ̡), retroflex ( ̢), rhotic (˞)

tilde

above (˜); below ( ̰), double ( ͠ ), middle / overlay ( ̴), vertical ( ̾)


ranger

/ˈɹeɪnd͡ʒə(ɹ)/

(literature, roleplaying games) A warrior character, often with wilderness and stealth skill, who typically travels the countryside.


periplus

en-noun

periplus (plural peripluses or peripli or periploi)

peripluses (plural)
peripli (plural)
periploi (plural)

/ˈpɛɹɪˌplʌs/

From Latin periplūs (“account of a voyage”) and Ancient Greek περίπλους (períplous, “voyage, naval manouver, account of a voyage”), from περί (perí, “peri-: around”) + πλοῦς (ploûs, “voyage”), from πλεῖν (pleîn, “to swim”). Cf. French périple, Spanish periplo, & Italian periplo.

der

Then follows a Periplus of the Euxine-Sea, which bears the name of Arrian, and was undoubtedly written by him in the time of Adrian, as the inſcription ſhews.

1738, Pierre Bayle, John Peter Bernard, Thomas Birch, John Lockman [et al.], “Hudson (Dr. John)”, in A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical, volume VI, London: Printed by James Bettenham, for G. Strahan, J. Clarke [et al.], →OCLC, page 300, footnote B:

The Periplûs of the Erythrêan Sea is the title prefixed to a work which contains the beſt account of the commerce carried on from the Red Sea and the coaſt of Africa to the Eaſt Indies, during the time that Egypt was a province of the Roman Empire.

1800, William Vincent, The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, volume I, London: Printed by Andrew Strahan, Printers Street; for Thomas Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies […], →OCLC, page 3:

Another great source of geographical information both for the ancients themselves and, so far as they still exist, for us also, are the Peripli (περίπλοι), that is, descriptions of the coasts of certain seas, in which the towns, ports, and promontories are enumerated, and often with their distances from one another. These peripli were drawn up for the guidance of sailors who had occasion to visit these seas for commercial and other purposes.

1859, Leonhard Schmitz, “Period of Historical Geography, from about B.C. 450, the Age of Herodotus, down to B.C. 276, or the Time of Eratosthenes”, in A Manual of Ancient Geography … With a Map Showing the Retreat of the 10,000 Greeks under Xenophon, Philadelphia, Pa.: Blanchard and Lea, →OCLC, page 25:

[…] the map of the world Ptolemy followed in his geography, finding the longitude that passed through the Gates of Herakles and the island of Rhodes, and placing north and south of it the world as recorded on the periploi of the Phoenician merchants.

1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!: Six Stories, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →ISBN:

A periplus of the Mediterranean: Greek sailing directions The following excerpt from one of the most complete periploi was attributed in the nineteenth century to the Greek merchant Scylax of Caryanda, known to have traded with settlements not only along the Red Sea but also on the shores of the Indian Ocean.

1978, “Periplus and Periegesis: Greek Maritime Writings”, in George Kish, editor, A Source Book in Geography (Source Books in the History of the Sciences), Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 24:

Listing cities along a coast, periploi gave details about sailing conditions, harbors, what the area imported or exported, what tariffs to expect, whether the people were friendly or not, and what noteworthy landmarks and marvels (mirabilia) one might expect to see. Hanno, whose periplus of Africa (circa 480 bce) was aborted when supplies ran out, described strange peoples and animals, including Trogodytes clad in animal skins and wild men, called "gorillas."

2016, Georgia Lynette Irby, “Greek and Roman Cartography”, in Georgia L. Irby, editor, A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome, volume II, Chichester, West Sussex, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 827:

(literature) An account of a voyage, particularly those of Hanno and Arrian, recording ports and coastal landmarks.


Apollonian

/æpəˈləʊnɪ.ən/

From Latin Apollō (Apollōn-) + -ian and Apollonius/Apollonia + -an.

2008, C. G. Stevenson, The Apollonian Appearance: The Being from the Planet Apollo, →ISBN:

At first, when the Apollonians converged on her, Mary Theresa thought she had made a major mistake by going to the battle.

2013, Jim Henry, Universal Life Force Series Featuring Antiquity Calais Vol. 1-3, →ISBN:

The last person who tried this kind of appeal was actually the new vessel -- an Apollonian, one I knew briefly.

2013, James Bartholomeusz, The Grey Star, →ISBN, page 17:

(science fiction) A native of the planet Apollo.


realist

(art, literature) An adherent of the realism movement; an artist who seeks to portray real everyday life accurately.


Lunarian

From the stem of Latin lunaris (“of the moon, lunar”) + -ian.

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Earth's Moon (Luna): either an indigenous one or a human one.


Lunarian

(science fiction) Pertaining to the inhabitants of Luna (Lunarians).


Mrs. Claus

A relatively new gala, the Celebrate Santa Convention boasts a sea of Santas, Mrs. Clauses, elves, and reindeers, […]

2011, Kristin Luna, Tennessee Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff, Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, page 167:

In normal years, he runs a roving school for Santas and Mmes. Claus and supplies a workforce of bearded men to malls and corporate events around the country. […] He led a neighborhood tree-lighting in a blue surgical mask with a Mrs. Claus friend near his apartment in Upper Manhattan, and a few buddies volunteered for a socially distanced Christmas parade.

2020 December 25, Emma Green, “The Christmas Crisis”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 2020-12-25:

“Why do I get the feeling that ‘we’ includes me?” I said warily. “Of course it includes you. You’re Mrs. Claus.” She reconsidered. “One of the Mrs. Clauses, at any rate. I signed you up for two shifts and some cookies. Surely that’s not too much to ask?”

2021, Liz Ireland, Mrs. Claus and the Halloween Homicide, Kensington Books, →ISBN:

In 1937, a Michigan school was established in Midland, and it has been training Santas and Mrs. Clauses for eighty-five years.

2022, Bill Loomis, Christmas in Detroit, Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, →ISBN, page 67:


Mercurian

(science fiction) An inhabitant of the planet Mercury.


Solarian

en-adj

Solarian (comparative more Solarian, superlative most Solarian)

more Solarian (comparative)
most Solarian (superlative)

(chiefly science fiction) Of or relating to the Sun.

He grinned at the profanity that came out of the communicator-speaker. Then—back at the irreverently nicknamed Galloping Cow which was the base ship of the Extra-Solarian Research Institute expedition to this star-cluster—McRae cut off.

1947 April, Murray Leinster, “Skit-Tree Planet”, in Thrilling Wonder Stories, volume 30, number 1, page 42:

(chiefly science fiction) Of or relating to the Solar System.

The Solarian one-man ships were even smaller than the Nigrian one-man ships, and some of these did a tremendous amount of damage.

1930 Fall, John Wood Campbell, “The Black Star Passes”, in Amazing Stories Quarterly, volume 3, number 4, page 521:

(chiefly science fiction) Of or relating to the inhabitants of the Solar system.


Solarian

It will be proved that a Solarian, supposing him to have a stature equal to our own, would do as much work as seven of our cultivators; and yet the Solarians are the happiest of beings; their lot is the highest degree of happiness to which we can aspire until the epoch when there shall exist stars of a more exalted rank, that are not yet to be found in our young universe.

1851, Charles Fourier, The Passions of the Human Soul, page 225:

"There has been another dive since our meeting, Jacob, and on that dive, we are told, only the first and more prosaic species of Solarian was observed. Not the second variety which has caused Dr. Kepler so much concern." Jacob was still confused by the hurried explanations Kepler had given of the two types of Sun-creatures so far observed.

(science fiction) An inhabitant of the Sun.

The small ships of the Nigrians were beginning to take a terrific toll in the thin ranks of the Solarians. The coming of the Rocket Squad had been welcomed indeed!

Is it true that all Terrans, and other Solarians are frightfully rich, and go simply everywhere, and do as they please, and that almost nobody works?

1956 August, Charles Stearns, “The Golden Ones”, in Science Fiction Quarterly, volume 4, number 4, page 30:

(chiefly science fiction) An inhabitant of any part of the solar system of the Sun.


spondaic

From Latin spondaicus, spondiacus, from Ancient Greek σπονδειακός (spondeiakós, “(music) used at a libation”).

der

(poetry) Having or relating to spondees.


cryokinesis

(fantasy, science fiction) The psychic ability to control and create ice and cold temperatures.


aerokinesis

(fantasy, science fiction) A telekinetic ability to control the movement of air.


couplet

From French couplet, from couple + -et. Doublet of cabaletta.

(literature) A pair of lines, typically with rhyming end words.

բեյթ

in poetry, a pair of lines with rhyming end words


parataxis

en-noun

parataxis (usually uncountable, plural parataxes)

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek παράταξις (parátaxis, “placement side by side”), from παρα- (para-) + τάξις (táxis, “arrangement”); equivalent to para- + taxis.

lbor

(literature) The juxtaposition of two images or fragments, usually starkly dissimilar, without a clear connection.


Verfremdungseffekt

Borrowed from German Verfremdungseffekt.

Brecht's famous ‘Verfremdungseffekte’^([sic]) or ‘alienation effect’, intended to counter the magical associations of stage illusion and the tendency for spellbound audiences to identify emotionally with characters on stage, both of which Brecht found abhorrent.

1997 May, Clive Barker, Simon Trussler, editors, New Theatre Quarterly, volume 13, number 50, page 114:

(theater, literature) Brecht's distancing effect.


Plutonian

From Pluto (“dwarf planet in the Solar System”) + -n- + -ian (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘from, related to, or like’, or nouns meaning ‘one belonging to, relating to, or like’), probably influenced by Plutonian (“of or relating to Pluto, Greek and Roman god of the underworld”) (see etymology 1).

affix

The Plutonians, who are almost extinct, once held a superscience that they have largely lost. Early Plutonian visits to Earth survived in folk memory as the devil, since Plutonians are gigantic, with horns, hooves, and tail.

1998, Everett F[ranklin] Bleiler, Richard Bleiler, “[Story Descriptions.] 1423. THE EARTHMAN’S BURDEN. Astounding Stories, June 1931, Ill. Paul.”, in Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines Amazing, Astounding, Wonder, and Others from 1926 through 1936, Kent, Oh., London: Kent State University Press, →ISBN, page 409, column 1:

(chiefly science fiction) An inhabitant of the dwarf planet Pluto.


terza rima

en-noun

terza rima (usually uncountable, plural terze rime)

/ˌtɛːtsə ˈɹiːmə/

Borrowed from Italian terza rima (literally “third rhyme”).

bor

In attempting to make the ‘Divina Commedia’ better known to English readers, it might have been held only a fitting mark of deference to my original to reproduce it, if practicable, in the metre of the poet's own choice. But on the appearance of my ‘Inferno,’ its Terza Rima was denounced as the one ‘deleterious ingredient’ which corrupted the version throughout, […]

1865, Dante Alighieri, “preface”, in John Dayman, transl., The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Translated in Terza Rima by John Dayman, page viii:

(poetry) An arrangement of triplets, generally in iambic pentameter in English, with rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc.

тэрцы́на

arrangement of triplets rhyming aba bcb cdc


polymorph

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

(transitive, fiction) The transformation of an item or creature into something different by magic.


polymorph

en-verb

polymorph (third-person singular simple present polymorphs, present participle polymorphing, simple past and past participle polymorphed)

polymorphs (present singular third-person)
polymorphing (participle present)
polymorphed (participle past)
polymorphed (past)

I got hemmed in by the werewolf again and, in desperation, tried an experimental new wand on it; and polymorphed it into a black pudding.

1999, Robin Johnson, “My gnomish healer has been having a rough time of it”, in rec.games.roguelike.nethack (Usenet):

(fiction, transitive, intransitive) To transform into something different by magic.


feyness

en-noun

feyness (countable and uncountable, plural feynesses)

(Shetland, folklore, countable) A ghost resembling a living person, seeing which is an omen of that person's death.


genki

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

Borrowed from Japanese げんき (“energetic, peppy”).

bor+

(anime and manga) A playful, hyperactive girl.


genki

en-adj

genki (comparative more genki, superlative most genki)

more genki (comparative)
most genki (superlative)

Akira, the genki red head, is accosted by Kyouko, a predatory blond girl in her high school.

2009 July 7, Dave Baranyi, “Aoi Hana - Blue Flowers for a Blue Girl”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

(anime and manga, typically of a girl) Playful and hyperactive.


adrenochrome

en-noun

adrenochrome (countable and uncountable, plural adrenochromes)

“[…]He's one of these Satanism freaks. He offered me human blood—said it would make me higher than I'd ever been in my life,” he laughed. “I thought he was kidding, so I told him I'd just as soon have an ounce or so of pure adrenochrome—or maybe just a fresh adrenalin gland to chew on.”

1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, New York: Popular Library, →ISBN, page 132:

It also revives old slurs, but instead of openly accusing Jews of drinking the blood of gentile children, various euphemisms are employed: “Coastal elites,” “Hollywood,” and “George Soros” are now said to be harvesting a chemical called adrenochrome to prolong their life spans.

2020 September 30, Helen Lewis, “The Joke’s on Us”, in The Atlantic:

(fiction) A fictional drug obtained from human adrenal glands.


versification

versification (countable and uncountable, plural versifications)

(poetry) The act, art, or practice of composing poetic verse; the construction or measure of verse or poetry; metrical composition.


erlking

Partial calque of German Erlkönig (literally “alder-king”), a mistranslation of Danish ellerkonge (“king of the elves”).

pcal

This line, and indeed the whole passage (lines 653-664), allude to the well-known poem by Goethe about the erlking, hoary enchanter of the elf-haunted alderwood, who falls in love with the delicate little boy of a belated traveler.

1962, Charles Kinbote [pseudonym; Vladimir Nabokov], Pale Fire, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, published November 1985, →ISBN:

So easy for one young son to be swallowed up in a world teeming with Erlkings, real and imagined.

2010, Rachel Billington, The Missing Boy, Hachette, →ISBN:

He was in the forest looking to see the trees / But none were there / He found a girl / She found the erlking

2012, ミラクルミュージカル (lyrics and music), “Murders”, in Hawaii: Part II:

By now, he seems less a cartoon character than some contemporary Erlking, the malicious spirit made famous by Goethe (and Schubert) but found originally in a Danish ballad.

2018 October 22, Carol Rumens, “Poem of the week: Three Poetesses by Kristín Ómarsdóttir”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(European folklore) In German literature and modern folklore, a malicious elf or spirit who preys on children.


timestream

By killing his great-grandfather, the time traveller disrupted the timestream.

The slightest excess of effort might upset the balance at any point of the time stream, sending them backward into the past or forward into the future independently of my will.

[1931 December, Eric Temple Bell, “The Time Stream”, in Wonder Stories:

The timestream is littered with these blank areas.

Two different timestreams running parallel but at different speeds. Amy, you're in a faster timestream.

2011, Tom MacRae, “The Girl Who Waited”, in Nick Hurran, director, Doctor Who, season 6, episode 10, spoken by The Doctor (Matt Smith):

(science fiction, mythology) A metaphorical conception of time as a stream, or flowing body of water.


apostrophic

All we need to know is that, in Shakespeare’s time, an apostrophe indicated omitted letters, which meant Hamlet could say with supreme apostrophic confidence: “Fie on’t! O fie!”; […]

2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “The Tractable Apostrophe”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 38:

(orthography) Pertaining to the grammatical use of, or using, the apostrophe (the diacritical mark ').

apostrófico

pertaining to the apostrophe (the diacritical mark ')


terrene

en-adj

terrene (comparative more terrene, superlative most terrene)

more terrene (comparative)
most terrene (superlative)

From Middle English terrene, from Anglo-Norman terriene, feminine of terrien, from Latin terrēnus, from terra (“earth”).

(science fiction) Made of matter (as opposed to antimatter).


storyline

From story + line. The climate science usage is defined in the IPCC WG III AR5 report (2014).

That film had a wonderful storyline, but the poor acting let it down.


confessionalism

en-noun

confessionalism (countable and uncountable, plural confessionalisms)

Confessionalism (poetry)
Confessionalism (religion)

Her rendition of "Dry Land" from her first album, Back to the Night, was a poetic fusion of music and lyrics that achieved an intimate tone too often sacrificed to confessionalism by other singers.

1977 April 23, Steve Blevins, “Armatrading: "Sit Back And See"”, in Gay Community News, page 11:

(poetry) A style of American poetry that draws on the personal history of the poet.


mech

mech (countable and uncountable, plural mechs)

(science fiction) A large piloted combat robot.

But I reprogrammed the recognition codes, and they won't treat him as Roubor Transic, nor will they obey any order he gives them. He's Mr. X to the mechs, a casual human to be taken care of just as well as possible, but never, never released.

1999, Analog Science Fiction & Fact - Volume 119, page 55:

He particularly liked the box full of "companions," small, hand-held mechs with advanced AI functions, programmed as individual advice and information systems.

2001, Robert I. Katz, Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future, page 100:

She grew up in Lower Manhattan, suffering the impeccably programmed attentions of the nanny mechs that did the work her mother and father couldn't be bothered with.

2006, Lou Anders, Futureshocks, page 75:

After a round of hugs and kisses, they headed to the lounge where Genie met them at the door and escorted them to the new VIP section followed by a mech that took their drink orders.

2019, Ron S. Nolan, Met Chron New-Humans:


subtitle

(authorship) A heading below or after a title.


centauroid

(fantasy, science fiction) A creature resembling a centaur.


Zaum

From Russian за́умь (záumʹ, literally “nonsense”).

bor

(literature) Linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation, associated with futurist poets of the Russian Empire.


backfill

en-noun

backfill (countable and uncountable, plural backfills)

(literature) Material in a story set earlier in the past, providing history or context for the current action.


cloaking device

cloaking device (plural cloaking devices)

1968. Coined by D. C. Fontana in the script for the Star Trek episode The Enterprise Incident.

Spock: "I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless."

1968, The Enterprise Incident (Star Trek), season 3, episode 2, Dorothy Catherine Fontana (actor):

Captain Needa: "They can't have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device."

1980, The Empire Strikes Back, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, and George Lucas (actors):

I put out my hand and touched the warm surface of the camouflaged Rolls-Royce. I was going to ask Mycroft if I could have the cloaking device fitted to my Speedster but I was too late; enthused by my interest he had trotted off to a large roll-top bureau and was beckoning me over excitedly.

(science fiction) A device which renders a person or thing invisible.


saurian

From Sauria (suborder of lizards) + -an (suffix forming adjectives), under influence from earlier French saurien.

compound

After dinner we all went on deck and watched the unfamiliar scenes of a Capronian night--that is, all but von Schoenvorts. There was less to see than to hear. From the great inland lake behind us came the hissing and the screaming of countless saurians. Above us we heard the flap of giant wings, while from the shore rose the multitudinous voices of a tropical jungle--of a warm, damp atmosphere such as must have enveloped the entire earth during the Palezoic and Mesozoic eras.

1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

Good evening, fellow saurians, and welcome once again to the Tri-Sports Arena! I'm your host, Raz Charkov...

1986, Kevin Eastman & al., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Vol. I, No. 6, page 15

(popularly, especially science fiction) Any large reptilian animal, including crocodiles and reptilian aliens.


Gotham

Salmagundi (periodical)
Washington Irving

When originally used in England, the meaning of the place name Gotham was literally “homestead where goats are kept”, from Old English gāt (“goat”) + hām (“home”).
As nickname for New York City, first used 1807 by Washington Irving in his Salmagundi Papers.


yaoi

en-noun

yaoi (countable and uncountable, plural yaoi or yaois)

From Japanese やおい (yaoi), a blend of 山(やま)無(な)し (yama nashi, “no climax”) + 落(お)ち無(な)し (ochi nashi, “no point”) + 意味(いみ)無(な)し (imi nashi, “no meaning”), originally mocking those who criticised early yaoi works for being too focused on sex scenes instead of storylines.

ja-blend

(pornography, anime, manga) A form of hentai involving two or more males in a gay relationship.

ইয়াওই

(anime, manga) A narrative or visual work featuring a romance or sexual relationship between two or more men.


FTL

en-noun

FTL (countable and uncountable, plural FTLs)

They had been slowly trailing the freighter for over a week, waiting for the ship to drop out of FTL.

2016, A.K. Brown, Jumpstart (Champagne Universe Series: Book 1), page 19:

(science fiction) Initialism of faster-than-light.


logline

First attested in 1613 as logge-line. A compound of log + line.

Coordinate term: elevator pitch

Screenwriting Tip #12: If you don't know your own logline, you probably don't know what your script is about. Some writers will tell you they don't have a logline. Their screenplay is “too complex” or “too character-driven,” […]

2013, Xander Bennett, Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, page 16:

The first step in outlining is to make sure that your logline, that one-or-two- sentence summary of your movie you first created in chapter 2 (“Jump-starting the Screenplay”), is the best that it can be in capturing what your movie is about now.

2013, Linda Venis, Cut to the Chase: Writing Feature Films with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers' Program, Penguin, →ISBN:

(authorship) A very short summary of a script or screenplay.


introversion

introversion (usually uncountable, plural introversions)

/ɪntɹəʊˈvɜːʃən/

/ɪntɹəˈvəɹʒən/

/ɪntɹəˈvəɹʃən/

/ɪntɹoʊˈvəɹʃən/

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

From New Latin intrōversio, from intrōvertere (“to turn within”), from Classical Latin intro (“within”) and vertere (“to turn”). Equivalent to introvert + -sion.

Such introversion is merely a matter of form.

1896, Richard Green Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible, page 50:

(poetry and literature) Arrangement of two similar words, lines, etc. to form the middle part of a structure.


redshirt

/ˈɹɛd.ʃəː(ɹ)t/

Redshirt (college sports)
Star Trek: The Original Series
Starfleet
redshirt (stock character)

Calque of Italian camicia rossa, equivalent to red + shirt. In later senses with reference to the uniforms or outfits worn by such people. The fandom slang sense emerged from the tendency of red-uninformed Starfleet officers to die in episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.

Sensing danger, Captain Kirk decided to beam down to the surface with Spock, McCoy, and a couple of redshirts.

I am not a goddamn redshirt! I have a purpose!

2017, 42m, in 12 Monkeys, season 3, episode 6:

(fiction, science fiction, fandom slang) An unimportant character introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril to the important characters; an expendable character.


poulter's measure

poulter's measure (plural poulter's measures)

Coined by George Gascoigne in 1576, because it was said that poulters gave 12 eggs for the first dozen and 14 if you bought a second dozen.

Good ladies, ye that have your pleasure in exile
Step in your foot, come take a place and mourn with me awhile.
And such as by their lords do set but little price,
Let them sit still, it skills them not what chance come on the dice.

1547, Earl Surrey, Complaint on the absence of her lover being at sea.:

(poetry) A metre with alternate lines of 12 and 14 syllables.


Augustan

From the Latin Augustānus, from Augustus, a Roman emperor who ruled a period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta.

(literature) Pertaining to the Roman poetic literature during this time.

Jonathan Swift was an Augustan writer.

(literature) Pertaining to the period of English literature during the first half of the 18th century, known for satire and political themes.

augustuslainen

relating to the era in English literature


nuk

(comics) The sound of a pacifier being suckled on.


biokinesis

(parapsychology, science fiction) The ability, through the use of psychic power, to affect organic matter on a microscopic level, to manipulate the physiology (e.g. heart rate, breathing, nervous system or brainwaves) and voluntary motor functions of other people or living organisms, inducing processes such as accelerated healing, etc.


transdimensional

en-adj

transdimensional (comparative more transdimensional, superlative most transdimensional)

more transdimensional (comparative)
most transdimensional (superlative)

(science fiction) Relating to a dimension other than those of the normal three-dimensional world


mara

Borrowed from Old Norse mara, from Proto-Germanic *marǭ, cognate with Old English mare or mære. Doublet of mare. See nightmare.

The corpus of related texts tells us that within rural society it was not improbable for your neighbour's envy of your fine cattle to take the form of a mara.

1996, Catharina Raudvere, “Now you see her, now you don't: some notes on the conception of female shape-shifters in Scandinavian traditions”, in Sandra Billington, Miranda Green, editors, The Concept of the Goddess, pages 41–55:

(European folklore) A nightmare; a spectre or wraith-like creature in Germanic and particularly Scandinavian folklore; a female demon who torments people in sleep by crouching on their chests or stomachs, or by causing terrifying visions.

խիպիլիկ

(folklore) a nightmare; spectre or wraith-like creature


kenning

A learned borrowing from Old Norse kenning, from kenna (“to know; to perceive”), from Proto-Germanic *kannijaną (“to make known”); see further at etymology 1. Compare can, keen, ken.

der

[A]s we are all aware, the Skalds used all sorts of kennings from Jewels, Gold, Silver, &c., to betoken Women, &c. Gold is called "The Sea's Blink (Blik)", and so on, and a female is "Gold's Mistress", "The Goddess of the Golden Jewel", and so forth.

1867–1868, George Stephens, “Bracteates”, in The Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England, Now First Collected and Deciphered, volume II, London: John Russell Smith; Copenhagen: Michaelsen and Tillge; printed by H. H. Thiele, →OCLC, pages 509–510:

I venture to say that a close study of the style of Piers Plowman would thoroughly dispose of alliteration as chief factor in the kenning-process.

1887 January, Francis B. Gummere, “Wilhelm Bode: Die Kenningar in der angelsächsen Dichtung. Mit Ausblicken auf andere Litteraturen. Darmstadt und Leipzig, 1886. [Strasburg Dissertation].”, in A. Marshall Elliott, editor, Modern Language Notes, volume II, number 1, Baltimore, Md.: [Johns Hopkins Press], →ISSN, →OCLC, column 36:

If we now move to the second helmingr, Kock tries to unscramble the two kenningar[…], but this is over-zealous, since there are ample parallels for such braiding of kenning elements. Finnbogi interprets the kenning 'ǫrbeiðanda bǫðvar jǫkla' contextually, to mean 'the one who provoked the warrior into drawing his sword' (Orkneyinga saga, 202).

2006, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium: Brepols, →OCLC, page 149:

The original also makes frequent use of the circumlocutory type of poetic expression known as the kenning, which consists (in its simplest form) of a base-word (always a noun, sometimes the second of the two elements in a compound word) accompanied by a determinant (either a noun in the genitive or, in the case of a compound-word kenning, the first of the compound's two elements).

2007, Andrew Wawn with Graham Johnson and John Walter, editors, Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth: Essays in Honour of T. A. Shippey (Making in the Middle Ages; 9), Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium: Brepols, →ISBN, page 172:

(poetry) A metaphorical compound or phrase, used especially in Germanic poetry (Old English or Old Norse) whereby a simple thing is described in an allusive way.

kenning

metaphorical phrase used in Germanic poetry


dipody

From di- + -pody, from Ancient Greek δι- (di-, “two”) and πούς, ποδός (poús, podós, “foot”).


ecumenopolis

en-noun

ecumenopolis (plural ecumenopolises or ecumenopoleis or ecumenopoli)

ecumenopolises (plural)
ecumenopoleis (plural)
ecumenopoli (plural)

From ecumene (“inhabited world”) + -polis (“city”).
From use as a common noun of Ecumenopolis, applying the concept to diverse scenarios.

suffix

(chiefly science fiction) A city spanning an entire planet or large moon.


diegetic

/ˌdaɪəˈd͡ʒɛtɪk/

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek διηγητικός (diēgētikós).

lbor

(fiction) Existing within a fictional universe (rather than as background), and able to be perceived by the characters.


duple

PIE word
 *dwóh₁
From Latin duplus (“twofold, double”). Attested since the 16th century. Doublet of double and doppio.

McGonagall is earnestly trying to gather the resources of a metrical tradition, not subvert it, but the mismatch of duple and triple measure in the first line alone means that, while it’s made of recognisable metrical feet, the line doesn’t feel like it belongs to any specific metrical pattern (iambic, dactylic, anapestic etc) or mode (pastoral, elegy or ballad).

2015, Ben Lerner, “Diary”, in London Review of Books, volume 38, number 12:


multidimensional

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(science fiction, New Age religion) a being that exists in more than one dimension


Tarzan

Coined by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A name created by Burroughs for his fiction.
Means "white skin" in the apes' fictional language; possibly echoic in its phonetics of various "exotic" names (see Orientalism).

(fiction) A heroic fictional character, raised in the jungle by apes.


cauchemar

(folklore) A demon or witch in French folklore that drains a sleeping person's energy by night.


flitter

Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed.

1941 July, Edward Elmer Smith, “The Vortex Blaster”, in Comet Stories, volume 1, number 5, page 10:

Small flitters were powered and made ready, and everything that carried manual controls was inspected and cleared for action.

1944 March, George Oliver Smith, “Circle of Confusion”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 33, number 1, page 54:

The small flitters carried by the Queen for exploration work held with comfort a two-man crew—with crowding, three.

1955, Alice Mary Norton (as Andrew North), Sargasso of Space, page 53:

The flitter tumbled from the shimmering throat of the wormhole transit route from Port Sol to Earthport.

1994, Stephen Baxter, Ring, →ISBN, page 43:

(science fiction) A small aircraft or spacecraft.


kavya

(poetry) A highly artificial Sanskrit literary style used by Indian court poets in the early centuries AD.


improvisatore

en-noun

improvisatore (plural improvisatores or improvisatori)

improvisatores (plural)
improvisatori (plural)

Coordinate term: improvisatrice

There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.

1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death:

(poetry) An individual who recites impromptu verse, as from a song or poem.


synth

(science fiction) A synthetic humanoid, an android, a robot, a clone


nanite

I had the nanites install the brackets, then climbed up there with the panels, placed them on the brackets, and had the nanites secure them.

2017, Stephanie C. Fox, New World Order Underwater, page 76:

Disperse into a cloud of nanites.

2021 August 11, Thomas Happ, Axiom Verge 2, Nintendo Switch, description for Tilhar


redcap

From red + cap.
In sense of "porter", 1890s US; compare contemporary Japanese 赤帽 (akabou), Chinese 小紅帽／小红帽 (Xiǎo Hóng Mào). On Labor Day, 1890, John Williams, an African-American railway porter, tied a red ribbon to his black uniform cap to stand out from the crowd at Grand Central Terminal. The strategy was so successful that it was soon adopted by others in the profession, leading to the synecdochic use of redcap as a term for all railway porters.

1876: Porter & Coates (pub.), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage Castle,
And beside him Old Redcap sly; —
"Now, tell me, thou sprite, who are meikle of might,
The death that I must die?"

"What's a Brownie?" you say. Oh, it's a kind of a sort of a Bogle, but it isn't so cruel as a Redcap! What! you don't know what's a Bogle or a Redcap!

1890, Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales:

[…] the goblin had aroused the mercenary's ire. This seemed to bring out a formidable and hitherto unrecognized talent in the taciturn young man.
"Why cam' ye by my door?" The redcap brandished his pikestaff menacingly.
Redcap - A malevolent goblin easily distinguishable by their namesake red cap, fiery red eyes, claws and iron boots. They often appear as little old men, but can run very fast despite the boots. They reside in castles and watchtowers along the English-Scottish border, but will move their residence to avoid detection. They have sharp eagle’s talons which they use for weapons, but can easily be repelled simply by reading holy verse. http://www.vf11.com/legendsofvalhal/legendsofvalhal-post-814.html

2002, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Ill-Made Mute: The Bitterbynde:

After boggarts, they studied Red Caps, nasty little goblinlike creatures that lurked where there had been bloodshed […]

1999 July 8, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter; 3), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

(British, folklore) A type of evil goblin or imp.


apologetic apostrophe

apologetic apostrophe (plural apologetic apostrophes)

While not all agreements were carried out as planned, what this attempt at consistency achieved in Smith's case was to give his poetry the appearance of a distinctive literary language, related to English, but having its own identity and forms, and without the distraction for the reader of the apologetic apostrophes.

2009, Margery Palmer McCulloch, Scottish Modernism and Its Contexts 1918-1959:

(sociolinguistics, orthography) An apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.


No, the slightest imbalance there would have alarms flashing all over the room. Probably it was the fact that he knew the threedee was a little out of whack.

1969, Dave Van Arnam, Starmind, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, page 14:

(science fiction) A system capable of recording or displaying three-dimensional video.

A man Ellaby's own size was sitting there, viewing a 3D. When he heard Ellaby at the door he got up.

1955 January, Martin Lesser, “The Dictator”, in Imagination, volume 6, number 1, page 85:

(science fiction) A three-dimensional video.


ice bucket

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(science fiction, slang, humorous) A pod or similar device containing a person in cryosleep.


slipstream

slipstream (countable and uncountable, plural slipstreams)

Compound of slip + stream. Fiction sense coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in 1989.

coin

Coordinate term: New Weird

Slipstream is not simply a mixture of fantasy and realism, but something which lies between or even beyond the two.

2000, Damien Broderick, quoting Justina Robson and Rozanne Rabinowitz, Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 88:

(uncountable, fiction) A genre of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries.


shapeshifter

/ˈʃeɪpʃɪftə/

The shapeshifter Lisa Bowalk, unable to shed the guise of a black panther, had gone onto the plain as a prisoner but was not now to be found among the dead above or the Captured down below.

Like the teller of shapeshifter stories—who conjures a shifting world of perceptions and expectations for his or her audience that is strikingly similar to the worlds created by the shapeshifter for its victims—the cultural practice of imagination...is an inherently shifty enterprise....

2003, Michael Bathgate, The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore: Shapeshifters, Transformations and Duplicities:

There have also been verified reports of fire-starters and ice-makers and a shapeshifter so powerful she was able to frame another Smallville citizen for a bank robbery!

Granted, Grace is talking about actual transformation, but she's a shapeshifter. For her, growing a couple inches taller is like an alternative to wearing high heels.

2015 January 30, Dan Shive, “Comic for Friday, Jan 30, 2015”, in El Goonish Shive - EGS:NP, archived from the original on 2022-08-13:

(fantasy, mythology, science fiction) A person or creature capable of changing their appearance or form at will.

canviaformes

creature capable of changing its appearance


warbird

(science fiction) A heavily-armed starship.


funnies

And I'm turning to the horoscope and looking for the funnies / When I'm feeling someone watching me and so I raise my head

1987, “Tom's Diner”, in Suzanne Vega (lyrics), Solitude Standing:

(comics) The section of a newspaper containing comic strips.


deathless

en-adj

deathless (comparative more deathless, superlative most deathless)

more deathless (comparative)
most deathless (superlative)

Her novels are filled with unforgettable characters and deathless prose.

"We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology."

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

Finally, one voice in England proclaimed him a deathless dramatist and portrayer of character (Morgann) (<422).

2000, Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 516:

(of a work of art, literature, etc.) Guaranteed not to be lost or forgotten due to its importance or conspicuous excellence.


spacing

en-noun

spacing (countable and uncountable, plural spacings)

He was a laconic old soul who loved spacing only a jot better than he loved Martian alky.

1949 February 20, Alfred Coppel, “Runaway”, in Planet Stories, volume 4, number 2 (Spring):

(science fiction) The activity of working or living in outer space; the occupation of a spacer.


okurigana

(orthography) In the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).


fairy dust

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Based on the story of the fictional character Peter Pan, see quotations.

Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him.

1911, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “Come away, Come away!”, in Peter and Wendy, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 54:

(fiction) A magical powder that would give the power of flight to whoever it was sprinkled on.


humaniform

(science fiction, robotics) A robot resembling a human.


black spot

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side. I could not doubt that this was the black spot; and taking it up, I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message: “You have till ten to-night.”

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part I (The Old Buccaneer), page 31:

(fiction) A fictional judicial device among pirates, consisting of a black circle indicating condemnation.


borganism

The word and concept are derived from The Borg, a race of cyborgs in the fictional Star Trek universe with a hive mind that operates as one.

(rare, idiomatic, science fiction, politics) Some forms of government.


xenoarchaeology

(science fiction) A fictional science, concerned with the physical remains of alien cultures. These may be found on planets which have been inhabited or visited by extraterrestrials.


dénouement

dénouement (countable and uncountable, plural dénouements)

Unadapted borrowing from French dénouement (“resolution”, literally “unknotting”).

ubor

Emily was a great favourite with him; and he had always viewed the attachment, at whose dénouement between her and Lorraine, Lady Mandeville meant to preside, as a somewhat foolish romance.

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 271:

At last this affair is moving towards the explosive dénouement he has been craving — the revelation, the release of tension, that will shake the universe in one fierce convulsion, and then allow everything to fall back into its rightful place, restored to normality!

2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 830:

(authorship, often figuratively) The conclusion or resolution of a plot; unravelling.


monkey boy

(derogatory, science fiction) Term of offense directed at male humans in general.


haikai

en-noun

haikai (countable and uncountable, plural haikai)

Borrowed from Japanese 俳(はい)諧(かい) (haikai).

A form of Japanese comic verse, featuring satire and puns.


X-ray vision

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(fiction, by extension) The ability or superpower to see through most or all solid objects as if they were transparent.


fembot

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Blend of female + -bot. Coined by screenwriters Arthur Rowe and Oliver Crawford in the television series The Bionic Woman (1976–1978), specifically in "Kill Oscar" (season 2, episode 5) first broadcast on October 27, 1976.

Yes, the girl is valuable. But, my fembots can do anything she can.

1976 October 27, Arthur Rowe, Oliver Crawford, Kill Oscar (The Bionic Woman), season 2, episode 5, spoken by Dr. Franklin (John Houseman):

Jawohl, Herr Doktor. I have created the ultimate weapon to defeat Austin Powers. Send in the fembots!

1997, Mike Myers, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, spoken by Frau Farbissina (Mindy Sterling):

The body of Eve 8, the fembot, represents both steely industrial strength and the mysteries of microelectronic circuitry.

2003, Jyanni Steffensen, “Doing It Digitally: Rosalind Brodsky and the Art of Virtual Female Subjectivity”, in Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture, The MIT Press, →ISBN, page 218:

(science fiction) A robot in female or feminine form.

A robot in female or feminine form.
A female sexbot.


photokinesis

photokinesis (usually uncountable, plural photokineses)

(parapsychology, science fiction) The ability to mentally manipulate light.


breakout character

breakout character (plural breakout characters)

(film, television, literature) A character who becomes the most popular, talked about, and imitated, helping to establish the narrative's popularity.


BFG

(literature) Initialism of Big Friendly Giant.


antihero

/ˈæn.tɪˌhɪə.ɹəʊ/

Alienation: A stage on the downside of the passage wherein the holdfast and the antihero take actions which bring about a disintegration of personality.

2006, James Bonnet, Stealing Fire from the Gods: The Complete Guide to Story for Writers and Filmmakers:

(literature, roleplaying games) A protagonist who proceeds in an unheroic manner, such as by criminal means, via cowardly actions, or for mercenary goals.


monometer

(poetry) A line of verse containing a single metrical foot.


concetto

/kənˈt͡ʃɛtəʊ/

Borrowed from Italian concetto, from Latin conceptus. See conceit and concept, which are doublets.

Tasso in particular, Mirollo notes, treated the concetto "as the equivalent in a lyric poem of plot in longer works." Pellegrino, similarly, and with reference to Tasso, says that concetti "are the soul and the form of a composition" […]

1997, James Biester, Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in Renaissance English Poetry, Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 32:

But to restrict the concetto to an idea or concept gives short shrift to the metaphorical and sometimes occult implications of the term. Conceit as discors concordia involves the comparison of unlike things, the finding of similarity in dissimilarity.

2006, Vernon Hyde Minor, The Death of the Baroque and the Rhetoric of Good Taste, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 9:

(literature) Affected wit; a witty turn of phrase; a conceit.


hydrokinesis

(fantasy, science fiction) The psychic ability to manipulate or control water


subspace

subspace (countable and uncountable, plural subspaces)

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(uncountable, science fiction) Any (often unspecified) method of communicating or travelling faster than light speed.

(uncountable, science fiction) An alternative dimension or universe, access to or use of which permits faster-than-light travel or communications; hyperspace.


omniverse

(science fiction) The entire set of co-existing universes, multiverses, etc.


vocalization

vocalization (countable and uncountable, plural vocalizations)

vowelization

supplying vowels/diacritics to Arabic and Hebrew words/texts

(orthography) The vowel diacritics in certain scripts, like Hebrew and Arabic, which are not normally written, but which are used in dictionaries, children's books, religious texts and textbooks for learners.

تَشْكِيل

supplying the vowels (diacritics), e.g. Arabic and Hebrew

(orthography, phonology) The addition of these diacritics and the respective phonemes to a word; the spoken form the word thereby receives.


coded

en-adj

coded (comparative more coded, superlative most coded)

more coded (comparative)
most coded (superlative)

The character comes across as being female-coded.

This character is coded as autistic.

He is aware of a number of programs with more "capable" characters like Sheldon, from The Big Bang Theory, who are autistic coded without being explicitly named as such. James notes that, despite being more visible, the autistic traits of these characters tend to be used for comic relief, while autistic people in everyday situations are never seen.

2020 May 21, Noah Adams, Bridget Liang, Trans and Autistic: Stories from Life at the Intersection, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, →ISBN, page 72:

(fiction, slang) Portrayed in a way that suggests or resembles having a specific trait or inspiration, without being officially explicitly stated as having that trait.


teratoid

I wanted to explore how at the launch of a new millennium many people were beginning to feel like teratoids in the global commodity exchange.

2002, Lance Olsen, “Omniphage: Rock 'n' Roll and Avant-Pop Science Fiction”, in Edging Into the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation, →ISBN, page 51:

The objects floating in the bath and lazing about on the bathroom's floor are all monsters, teratoids dehumanized by the husking of their clothes.

2002, Aiko Ito, Graeme Wilson, I Am a Cat, volume 2, translation of original by Natsume Soseki, →ISBN, page 345:

He had little time, however, to ponder his lack of reflex, for new incident forced his attention back to the ridge where the four teratoids had first broken from cover.

2007, Geoffrey Verdegast, Of Staves and Sigmas: Souls of Ergos Book One, →ISBN, page 67:


ABCs

(obsolete, poetry) A type of poem in which the lines start with the letters of the alphabet in order.


book signing

(authorship) An event where an author signs copies of her/his books for fans.


little green man

en-noun

little green man (plural little green men)

[ˌlɪ.ɾɫ̩ ˈɡɹɪ̃i̯m ˌmɛ̃ə̯n̆]

[ˌlɪ.t͡ʔɫ̩ ˈɡɹɪ̃i̯m ˌmãn̆]

[ˌlɘ.ɾɯ ˈɡɹɘ̯ĩm ˌmɛ̞̃n̆]

կանաչ մարդուկ

humorous: space alien, Martian — see also alien

An engram is NOT [...] One of the little green men Americans claim have crashed in flying saucers.

1950 December 6, The Sydney Morning Herald, page 3, column 5:

(chiefly science fiction) A conventional fictional alien from outer space in the form of a small humanoid with green skin.

It was the pantomime of "Jack and the Bean Stalk," and as the Hallicots entered a large number of little green men were hammering on anvils in a gloomy and spacious cave.

1866 May 5, The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, page 4, column 1:

How funny to see the little green men, and the fairies in gossamer and dewdrops.

1883 March 17, The Brisbane Courier, page 3, column 3:

In an uncautions moment, once upon a time, I had informed Sweetheart that on the branches of that tree in years long past, when I used to trudge past it on foot, there used to be seen little green men, moping and mowing. So every time we pass that way Sweetheart requires the story with out variations. Not a single fairy must be added or subtracted.

1896 January 25, The Australasian, page 41, column 3:

Still the Green Isle is supposed to specialise in fairies - the little green men and fairy sprites have in spired many poems and stories of that distressful country[.]

1921 January 23, The Truth, page 8, column 4:

"Sure...the Little Green Men can't be as spiteful as some people say!"

1932 March 5, The Daily Mercury, page 14, column 2:

(folklore) A type of diminutive sprite or fairy that wears green clothing.


monophonic

From a similar selection, says M. Remusat, the Coreans have made a monophonic alphabet of nine vowels and fifteen consonants, with which they write their language.

1828 July 7, Peter S. Du Ponceau, “On some Points connected with the Nature of the Chinese Language (enclosure in letter from Basil Hall)”, in The Philosophical magazine, volume 5:

(orthography) having simple one-to-one mapping between letters and phonemes


sandman

E.T.A. Hoffmann
The Sandman (short story)
sandman

From sand + -man. The mythological sense may be from German Sandmann, Sandmännchen, as it is apparently first attested in English in the context of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella The Sandman (1816). The German is attested in the relevant sense since at least the mid-18th century.

This then was the Sandman; but what was his occupation, and what was his purpose ? The nursery-maid being applied to, gave a nursery-maid's explanation, that the Sandman was a bad man, who flung sand in the eyes of little children who did not go to bed.

1827, “On the Supernatural in Composition; and particularly on the Works of Ernest Theodore William Hoffman”, in Museum of Foreign Literature and Science, volume 11, page 458:

(folklore) A figure that brings sleep and dreams by sprinkling magical sand into people's eyes.


ogonek

From Polish ogonek (literally “little tail”).

The pangram “Pchnąć w tę łódź jeża lub ośm skrzyń fig” (To push a hedgehog or eight boxes of figs into that boat) highlights a few of the language-specific diacritical marks, such as L with stroke (ł) and ogoneks (ą, ę) necessary to write in Polish—demonstrating how a writing system can accommodate many languages with thorough character inclusion.

2023, Mia Cinelli, Giving Type Meaning: Context and Craft in Typography, Bloomsbury, →ISBN:

(orthography) A hook-shaped diacritical mark ⟨◌̨⟩ attached underneath a vowel, typically to indicate nasalization, as in Ąą, Ęę, Įį, Ǫǫ or Ųų.


one-shot

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And with the added bonuses of color and videotape coupled with the disadvantages of higher production costs, a lot of syndie producers forsook weekly series in favor of one-shot specials — and it didn't take long for the airwaves to become thick with one-shots.

2001, Hal Erickson, Syndicated Television: The First Forty Years, 1947-1987, →ISBN, page 106:

The Mummy belongs in a chapter devoted to one-shots as its progeny are different breeds rather than direct sequels.

2013, B. Forshaw, British Gothic Cinema, →ISBN:

This spectacular, free one-shot also includes original short stories from Sean Rubin's upcoming, enchanting dinosaur tale, Bolivar; Jim Henson's fantasy classic, Labyrinth (an Archaia original graphic novelby Ted Naifeh, Adrianne Ambrose, and Cory Godbey is in the works); and Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulos' justice-seekin' boy hereo, Cow Boy.

2014, Louis Zampini, A Father's Guide to Comics, →ISBN:

The one-shot trend continued in Japan, where fans are used to paying what Western audiences consider absurdly high prices for anime, but this hampered them from Western release until companies began to bundle one-shots together.

2015, Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy, The Anime Encyclopedia, 3rd Revised Edition, →ISBN:

(television, film, comics) A television program, film, or comic book that is not part of a series.


synchronizer

(film editing) A device for aligning multiple film strips in a replay or editing device.


cheville

Borrowed from French cheville. Doublet of clavicle.

The genius of prose rejects the cheville no less emphatically than the laws of verse; and the cheville, I should perhaps explain to some of my readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a balance in the sound.

1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Art of Writing:

The practice of using chevilles was very common in old Irish poetry, and a bad practice it was; for many a good poem is quite spoiled by the constant and wearisome recurrence of these chevilles.

1910, Patrick Weston Joyce, English as we speak it in Ireland, chapter 5:

(poetry) A word or phrase whose only function is to make a sentence metrically balanced.


blaster

Blast out the lakes and canals—whittle down the peaks and mounds with atomic blasters—file them into the shape of gigantic buildings.

1938 April, Henry Kuttner, “Hollywood on the Moon”, in Thrilling Wonder Stories, volume 11, number 2, page 26:

One slender hand clung near a singular jewel, like a great white snow crystal, that hung from her throat. And the other, with a practiced and familiar grip, held a barytron blaster of the newest legion design. An unwilling little glisten had come into the violet eyes. Her blond head flung angrily. She caught her breath, and lifted the barytron blaster. Its bright tube pointed straight between his shoulders. He would never even know.

1939 June, Jack Williamson, “One Against the Legion”, in Astounding Science-Fiction, volume 23, number 4, page 138:

(science fiction) An unspecified powerful hand weapon, usually one that fires an energy pulse or beam.


death ray

(science fiction) A beam of radiation that can kill.


ray gun

Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe / Put your ray gun to my head

1972, “Moonage Daydream”, in The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, performed by David Bowie:

(science fiction, weaponry) A weapon that shoots harmful rays.


superluminal

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

The first thing to understand about superluminal expansion is that it isn't visible to the unaided eye. The objects that appear to be moving faster than light are emitting radio waves, not visible light.

1984, Edward Edelson, “Faster than light?”, in Popular Science, retrieved 2013-11-20, page 70:

(astronomy, physics, fiction, fantasy) Faster than light; having a speed greater than light.

(unpreferred translation due to hyperphoton, hyperphotonic: υπερφωτονικός m (yperfotonikós), υπερφωτονική f (yperfotonikí), υπερφωτονικό n (yperfotonikó))


earthbound

en-adj

earthbound (comparative more earthbound, superlative most earthbound)

more earthbound (comparative)
most earthbound (superlative)

(science fiction) Heading towards Earth.

a föld felé tartó/közeledő/haladó/irányuló


Spock

en-proper noun

Spock (countable and uncountable, plural Spocks)

Alternative form: Mr. Spock

This caricature called economic man was not only completely self-centered, he was also entirely rational in all his decisions, whether consuming or investing—a veritable Mr. Spock.

2010, William McDonald Wallace, The Decline and Fall of the U.S. Economy: How Liberals and Conservatives Both Got It Wrong, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, page 48:

Phelps's calorie intake may seem superhuman, and his 6' 4", 185-pound body may recall Greek statuary, but fans are also drawn to him by a goofy grin and oversized ears that led to his being called Spock on the school bus.

2008 December 2, “Sportsman of the Year: Michael Phelps”, in Sports Illustrated:

(science fiction) In Star Trek, a Starfleet commander and science officer of the USS Enterprise, especially known for his Vulcan logic, reason, and stoicism and his distinctive pointed ears.


rubai

Borrowed from Arabic رُبَاعِيّ (rubāʕiyy).

(poetry) A quatrain in classical Arabic, Persian, Turkic or Urdu poetry.


warp factor

From the science-fiction series Star Trek.

(science fiction) A hypothetical figure indicating a space vessel's speed greater than the speed of light.


bagatelle

en-noun

bagatelle (countable and uncountable, plural bagatelles)

Borrowed from French bagatelle, from Italian bagattella.

One afternoon in 1920. a young pianist sat down in a shuttered room in the capital of defeated Germany and played a Bagatelle by Beethoven.

2007, Norman Lebrecht, The Life And Death of Classical Music, page 7:

(literature, music) A short piece of literature or of instrumental music, typically light or playful in character.


dipinto

Borrowed from Italian dipinto (literally “painting”).

(archaeology, epigraphy) a sketched or painted (as opposed to engraved) inscription.


Earthican

Blend of Earth + American. Possibly popularized by the adult animated sitcom Futurama.

I went to an Earth Day event in San Francisco and there was this huge Earthican flag, circa 3000 A.D., with the red and white stripes and an image of Earth up in the corner.

2002 April 23, Jym Dyer, “Earthican Day”, in alt.tv.futurama (Usenet):

Just consider that, over time, on a scale of millions of years, earthican continents have had *lots* of different configurations

2004 October 18, Wayne Throop, “Early parallel-universe stories”, in rec.arts.sf.written (Usenet):

You may remember him [Paul Hellyer] from such news articles as "Is there a party Paul hasn't belonged to or at least tried to join?" and "How dare the Americans threaten the delicate Earthican-Alien relationship by [planning] to emplace armed bases on the Moon?"

2006 May 25, James Nicoll, “Spider's Heinlein novel [was: Re: ConCarolinas 2006 is coming!]”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom (Usenet):

that first step is enough to make direct attacks rather tricky, to make most of the Earthican powers' armed forces useless.

2006 June 27, John Schilling, “David Drake - Leary and the RCN”, in rec.arts.sf.written (Usenet):

(nonstandard, humorous, science fiction) Of or from the planet Earth.


Earthican

Fry: Well, if you're going to be Earthicans, we're going to have to teach you.

2001 April, “A Leela of Her Own”, in Futurama, season 4, episode 10:

(nonstandard, humorous, science fiction) An inhabitant of planet Earth.


nahualism

From nahual + -ism. The first element is from Nahuatl nahualli (“sorcerer, spirit, animal form a person may take”).

uder

(folklore, mythology) The Mesoamerican belief that certain human beings can transform into animals.


Newspeak

Newspeak
Newspeak (programming language)
Nineteen Eighty-Four

From new + speak, coined by George Orwell in 1949 in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The programming language was so named because of its “shrinkable” design, following Orwell's idea of a continually diminishing vocabulary in Newspeak.

(fiction) The fictional language devised to meet the needs of Ingsoc and designed to restrict the words, and thereby the thoughts, of the citizens of Oceania in the 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.


Dyson sphere

Named after American theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson, who originally described the concept in 1960.

named-after

"But there's more to a Dyson sphere than collecting solar power.
"Say you make the sphere one astronomical unit in radius. You've got to clear out the solar system anyway, so you use all the solar planets in the construction. That gives you a shell of, say, chrome steel a few yards thick. Now you put gravity generators all over the shell. You'd have a surface area a billion times as big as the Earth's surface. A trillion people could wander all their lives without ever meeting one another."

1970 October, Larry Niven, Ringworld, →ISBN, page 106:

Aye, an actual Dyson sphere. Can you imagine the engineering skills needed to even design such a structure?

1992 October 12, Ronald D. Moore, “Relics”, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 7, episode 4, spoken by Scotty (James Doohan):

You could even extend the argument to say why, on purely selfish grounds, a benign intelligence might remain benevolently engaged with the rest of the universe, rather than hiding away in a Dyson sphere and literally wireheading itself - because the payoff for expansive engagement will necessarily eventually exceed any possible payoff accompanying solitary self-reconstruction.

2005 August 19, Mitchell Porter, “Re: Paperclip monster, demise of.”, in SL4 mailing list, message-ID <BAY103-F40D2C8C3B70C9EB8A834EACAB50@phx.gbl>:

Meridian is a construct akin to a Dyson sphere: a vast, hollow shell encompassing a power source that provides heat and light to lush green biomes in the interior.

2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Meridian Codex entry:

(science fiction) A solid shell of matter enclosing a star.


runabout

(science fiction) A small, relatively maneuverable spacecraft or shuttlecraft.


beanstalk

If we don't build a Beanstalk, somebody else will—and once one is working, the number of rocket launches will drop to zero. That's the source of more than half our income.

1979, Charles Sheffield, The Web Between the Worlds:

I have never liked riding the Beanstalk. My distaste was full-blown even before the disaster to the Quito Skyhook. A cable that goes up into the sky with nothing to hold it up smells too much of magic.

1982, Robert A[nson] Heinlein, Friday, page 1:

Space elevators proposed for the Earth require novel high-strength materials and a substantial counterweight for their implementation. The problem becomes easier for Mars. There is no available "counterweight" for a synchronous "beanstalk" but Phobos proves a substantial anchor in non-synchronous orbit. A tether extending 1456 km from Phobos could release objects into an orbit just entering the Martian atmosphere, providing a launch and recovery device for Mars Excursion Modules. Extending the "beanstalk" to a length of 5832 km would place the end at the fringes of the Martian atmosphere.

2005 May 20, Bob Parkinson, “Partial Beanstalks for Mars Exploration”, in Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, volume 58, number 05/06, page 197:

(chiefly science fiction) A space elevator.


gynoid

She was obviously a skillful surgeon. She expertly cleaned and sterilized the gaping holes in the gynoid’s chest and back.

2000, Thomas J. Sanders, God's Fire, Trafford Publishing, page 58:

Purchased as sex toys, the gynoids are programmed to love and sexually serve male humans; the aberrant violence of one particular model, called "Hadaly," is a mystery to the company that manufactures them. They should not be able to kill humans, nor should they have any desire to commit suicide, since they should have no real sense of self.⁴⁴ Batõ and his new partner, Togusa (who was Kusanagi's partner in the previous film), spend the rest of the film trying to discover how the gynoids have acquired their faulty programming—is it the work of a terrorist hacker, for example, targeting prominent men?

2006, Sharalyn Orbagh, “5: Frankenstein and the Cyborg Metropolis: The Evolution of Body and City in Science Fiction Narratives”, in Steven T. Brown, editor, Cinema Anime: Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation, Springer, page 99:

She is embodied as a bright blue feminized robot, much like the mechanized gynoids in the classic film Metropolis (1928).

2013, Nickie D. Phillips, Staci Strobl, Comic Book Crime: Truth, Justice, and the American Way, New York University Press, page 82:

(science fiction) An android (humanoid robot) in female form.


black letter

en-noun

black letter (countable and uncountable, plural black letters)

Also we discovered what is still more curious, an English version of the black-letter Latin.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

The original boldface printing types are the blackletters used by Gutenberg in the 1440s. For the next two centuries, blackletter fonts were widely used not only in Germany but in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Engand.

2002, Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (version 2.5), Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, →ISBN, page 103:

(calligraphy) A highly calligraphic Western European script style used from approximately 1150.

(typography) A Northern European style of type based on the script, with contrasting thick-and-thin, angular strokes forming upright letterforms, and usually set with a dark typographic colour on the page.


pantsing

pantsing (countable and uncountable, plural pantsings)

Coordinate term: plotting

Here's how to painlessly make pantsing your backup. The unknown can be intimidating. The key to pantsing is to not worry about how it will all hang together. Just start writing.

2017, The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, Penguin, →ISBN:

(informal, writing) An improvised style of writing without an outline.


cancrine

en-adj

cancrine (comparative more cancrine, superlative most cancrine)

more cancrine (comparative)
most cancrine (superlative)

From Latin cancer (“crab”) + -īnus, as if from *cancrīnus. The poetry sense comes from the fact that most species of crab can walk sideways, either left or right.

[…] the prodigious variety of ſo many kinds of verſe, Leonine, Alexandrine, Acroſtic, Chronologic, Hieroglyphic, Cancrine, Croſs-formed, Labyrinthic, Pyramidal, and a thouſand other follies […]

1772, José Francisco de Isla, translated by Thomas Nugent, The History of the Famous Preacher Friar Gerund de Campazas: Otherwise Gerund Zotes, volume I, London: T. Davies, page 233:

A marble bénitier, vessel for holy water, is surrounded with what Alvarez has denominated a recurrent, or Cancrine verse, which forms the same words beginning at each end: ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ.

1814, “A Short Sketch of a Short Trip to Paris”, in Abraham John Valpy, editor, The Pamphleteer, volume III, number VI, page 532:

(poetry) Palindromic; reading the same forwards or backwards.


spiritus lenis

Learned borrowing from Latin spīritus lēnis.

lbor

smooth breathing
smooth breathing#English

(orthography) Synonym of smooth breathing


spiritus asper

From Latin spīritus asper (literally “rough breath”).

bor

The spiritus asper mark looks like an opening single quote, as in the word εὑρίσκω (heurískõ), the word εὕρηκα (heúrēka), or the word ἕξις (héxis, "habit").

h, as an aspirate, is very frequent in Chinese ; it is generally a stronger aspirate than in English : in the dialects of the south it is often changed into f, in the north into s, or sh. To mark an aspirate after a consonant, we use the Greek spiritus asper in preference to h.

1836 May, “System of Orthography for Chinese words”, in The Chinese Repository, volume V, number I, page 27:

(orthography) A diacritic mark ( ʻ ) in Ancient Greek used to indicate aspiration of an initial vowel or rho; also used for a similar sound in the Wade–Giles system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese.

examples from the Wade–Giles romanization system


skimmer

Kondric stood beside the skimmer for a moment, looking back at his warriors. They shouted and banged their swords on their shields. He raised his hand in farewell, and followed Violet into the cabin.

2015, Aurora Springer, Grand Master's Pawn:

They said no one landed on other planets. They said there was no such thing as a skimmer. Rocky hadn't believed them. They didn't know everything. He wished they could see the skimmer.

2000, Carlie Simonsen, Rocky to the Rescue, page 2:

(science fiction) A small, fast-moving spacecraft.


esper

From ESP + -er from ESP (“extrasensory perception”).

I don't know why anybody would be spying on me, either, but—I'm neither a Lensman nor an esper, but I'd swear that somebody's peeking over my shoulder half the time.

1942 June 20, Edward Elmer Smith, “Storm Cloud on Deka”, in Astonishing Stories, volume 3, number 4:

But Espers can’t pick up any EK brain pattern farther than the horizon. It’s direct wave transmission. Even large objects cannot be penetrated. A building, say, or a—

1950 August 20, Alfred Bester, “The Devil's Invention”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 45, number 6, page 139:

extrasensory perception
extrasensory perception

(chiefly science fiction) A person who has extrasensory perception.


planeteer

Blend of planet + volunteer or planet + -eer.

(science fiction, rare) Someone who makes interplanetary journeys.