broken rhyme

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

1874, John King, Rustic Pictures and Broken Rhymes:

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


rule of three

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

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


antag

(informal, fiction, writing) Clipping of antagonist.


HAL

artificial intelligence
artificial intelligence

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


poioumenon

Ancient Greek ποιούμενον (poioúmenon), "product".

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

1991, Alastair Fowler, A History of English Literature:

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


necrocracy

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

confix

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


Saci

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

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


pentina

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


dropship

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

1997 September 20, Dan Simmons, The Rise of Endymion, New York: Bantam, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 363:

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

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

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


suicide booth

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


handwavium

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

af

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


spec script

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


ur-poem

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


meido

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

uder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


merism

en-noun

merism (countable and uncountable, plural merisms)

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

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

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


killbot

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

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


closed time loop

closed time loop (plural closed time loops)

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


autoinfanticide

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

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

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

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

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


impervium

(science fiction) An impervious substance.


hypersleep

suspended animation
suspended animation#English

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


cybersuit

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

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

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

2002, Douglas Mulhall, Our molecular future:

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

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

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


antispinward

en-adv

antispinward (comparative more antispinward, superlative most antispinward)

more antispinward (comparative)
most antispinward (superlative)

To antispinward was the largest mountain men had ever seen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


choric

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


semisyllable

(orthography) A glyph from a semisyllabary.


yokai

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

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


Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu

the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu (canonical)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


fabulism

en-noun

fabulism (usually uncountable, plural fabulisms)

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


farspeaker

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

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

(science fiction, fantasy) One who farspeaks.

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

1948, New Statesman: the week-end review

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

1984, John Brunner, The Crucible of Time:

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

2009, Nick Gevers, Jay Lake, Other Earths:

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

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

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


hovercam

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

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

(science fiction) A mobile hovering camera.


superhero insurance

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


explodium

(chiefly fiction) Any material that explodes extremely easily.


hoverjet

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


hoverbike

(science fiction) A motorbike capable of levitation.


watchphone

Elaborate Swiss watchphones peeked from their sleeves.

1989, Bruce Sterling, Islands in the net:

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

1996, Michael Moynihan, The coming American renaissance:

The watchphone would have a detachable microphone and earpiece.

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

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

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

(chiefly science fiction) A watch with telephone capabilities.


hovercycle

(science fiction) A bicycle capable of levitation.


wyakin

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


Aristophanic

en-adj

Aristophanic (comparative more Aristophanic, superlative most Aristophanic)

more Aristophanic (comparative)
most Aristophanic (superlative)


lobsterwoman

From lobster + -woman, modelled after lobsterman.

Coordinate term: lobsterman (m)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


orgasmatron

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

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

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

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

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

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


telepaper

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

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

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


antivampire

antivampire (comparative more antivampire, superlative most antivampire)

more antivampire (comparative)
most antivampire (superlative)

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

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

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

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

(folklore, fantasy) Opposing or countering vampires.


weredog

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

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

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


werelion

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

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

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

lion-garou

shapeshifter assuming the shape of a lion


planetside

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

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


planetside

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

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


antipoetry

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

antirunous

poetry that breaks away from normal conventions


stardate

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

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

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

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

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


cryosleep

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

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

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

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


heroicomical

heroicomical (comparative more heroicomical, superlative most heroicomical)

more heroicomical (comparative)
most heroicomical (superlative)

a heroicomical poem

(literature) Blending heroic and comical elements.


closed form

en-noun

closed form (countable and uncountable, plural closed forms)

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


Gogolesque

en-adj

Gogolesque (comparative more Gogolesque, superlative most Gogolesque)

more Gogolesque (comparative)
most Gogolesque (superlative)

(literature) Reminiscent of the works of Nikolai Gogol.


antibacchius

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


skycycle

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

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

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

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


alienlike

alienlike (comparative more alienlike, superlative most alienlike)

more alienlike (comparative)
most alienlike (superlative)

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

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

(science fiction) Resembling or characteristic of an alien.


ahegao

en-noun

ahegao (countable and uncountable, plural ahegao or ahegaos)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


heptastich

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


dochmiac

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

bor

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


jetter

/ˈd͡ʒɛtə(ɹ)/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


shipside

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


backshadowing

en-noun

backshadowing (countable and uncountable, plural backshadowings)

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


moonling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(science fiction) Someone from the Moon.


monorhyme

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

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

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


jetcar

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


halieutics

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

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


sea king

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


novelism

novelism (countable and uncountable, plural novelisms)

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


epodic

en-adj

epodic (comparative more epodic, superlative most epodic)

more epodic (comparative)
most epodic (superlative)

epodic forms

epodic meter

epodic literature

(poetry) Pertaining to or resembling an epode.


aircar

(science fiction) A car capable of flight.


reptiloid

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

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

(science fiction) A reptilian humanoid creature.


meteorometer

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

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

(science fiction) A device for locating meteors.


ictic

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


pentastich

(poetry) Any composition consisting of five verses.


Gothamite

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


teleshow

(chiefly science fiction) a television show.


podder

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

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

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

2010, Robertski Brothers, The McAtrix Derided:

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

2013, Charles Sheffield, Proteus Unbound:

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


tripedal

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


antistrophic

(poetry) Of or pertaining to an antistrophe.


wallcrawling

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


metallokinesis

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


technopathy

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

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

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

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

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


bodyswap

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


starman

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

(science fiction) An inhabitant of a star.


Gothic double

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

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


brachycatalectic

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


astroscope

astroscopes and other high precision optical devices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


homiform

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

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

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

2013, Dean Vyas, Pastimes of the Unseen:

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


ditrochee

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


tetracolon

en-noun

tetracolon (plural tetracolons or tetracola)

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

1791, Henry Dimock, Notes Critical and Explanatory:

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


newhalf

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

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

calque

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


isochronon

A bedside isochronon diffused a soft-light 9:30

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

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


pentapody

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

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


mismeter

en-verb

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

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

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


Mistralian

en-adj

Mistralian (comparative more Mistralian, superlative most Mistralian)

more Mistralian (comparative)
most Mistralian (superlative)

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

(literature) Of or pertaining to Frédéric Mistral


Blochian

Blochian (comparative more Blochian, superlative most Blochian)

more Blochian (comparative)
most Blochian (superlative)

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


cynanthropy

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

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


epitrite

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

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


semiped

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


tiercet

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


teleportal

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


Ariostan

Ariostan (comparative more Ariostan, superlative most Ariostan)

more Ariostan (comparative)
most Ariostan (superlative)

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


proceleusmatic

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

uder

προκελευσματικός

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


proceleusmatic

en-adj

proceleusmatic (comparative more proceleusmatic, superlative most proceleusmatic)

more proceleusmatic (comparative)
most proceleusmatic (superlative)

uder

προκελευσματικός

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


diiambus

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


spaceway

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

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

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


teleportage

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

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


Archilochian

en-adj

Archilochian (comparative more Archilochian, superlative most Archilochian)

more Archilochian (comparative)
most Archilochian (superlative)

Archilochian meter

(poetry) Of or pertaining to the Ancient Greek satirical poet Archilochus and his style.

greater Archilochian

a verse consisting of four dactyls and three trochees

lesser Archilochian

a verse comprising two dactyls and a length


dactylar

(poetry) Pertaining to dactyl; dactylic.


Asclepiad

First used by the Ancient Greek poet Asclepius.

(poetry) A choriambic verse consisting of four metrical feet: a spondee, two choriambi, and an iambus.


heptachord

From Ancient Greek ἑπτάχορδος (heptákhordos, “seven-stringed”), from ἑπτά (heptá, “seven”) + χορδή (khordḗ, “chord”). Compare French heptacorde.

der

(poetry) A composition sung to the sound of seven chords or tones.


sextain

From Latin sextus (“sixth”), from sex (“six”). Compare Italian sestina. Doublet of sestina.

(poetry) A stanza of six lines; a sestine or sestina.


choriambus

en-noun

choriambus (plural choriambuses or choriambi)

choriambuses (plural)
choriambi (plural)

From Latin choriambus, from Ancient Greek. Equivalent to choreus + iambus.

(poetry) A metrical foot consisting of four syllables, of which the first and last are long, and the others short; a choreus, or trochee, united with an iambus.


tambaran

(folklore) A demon or spirit, among certain peoples of Papua New Guinea.


black knight

(fiction) A villain or evil character who masks their identity and that of their liege by not displaying heraldry.


mammaloid

(science fiction) A mammalian humanoid creature.


twinner

The twinner of Jack's ailing mother, a faded movie actress named Lily Cavanaugh (who was billed in her time as the “Queen of the B Movies”), […]

2016, John C. Tibbetts, The Gothic Worlds of Peter Straub, McFarland, →ISBN, page 149:

Everyone, that is, except for Jack; his twinner, Jason, died as a baby and has become something of a mythical character in the alternate world, […]

2020, Debbie Olson, Children and Childhood in the Works of Stephen King, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 185:

(fiction, uncommon) One who is identical, is similar, or is a counterpart, to another person.


correption

correption (countable and uncountable, plural correptions)

From Latin correptio (“seizure”), from corripere (“to seize”).


dochmius

From Latin dochmius, from Ancient Greek δόχμιος (dókhmios, “oblique; dochmius”).

bor

Yet there is good reason to doubt the existence of any such; —good reason to think, that dochmiuses belong to the triple rhythm

1843, William O'Brien, The Ancient Rhythmical Art Recovered, page 6:

This chorus, which consists almost entirely of dochmii, is so corrupt as to present various problems of an almost insoluble character, although portions of it have yielded to the brilliant emendatory efforts of Hermann.

1910, R. J. Walker, Anti Mias: An Essay in Isometry, page 228:

Every dochmius is catalectic, representing an original phrase of nine primary times.

1912, John Williams White, The Verse of Greek Comedy, page 296:

(poetry) A metrical foot of five syllables used in Greek tragedy for highly anguished scenes. The metrical pattern is typically: short-long-long-short-long.


homoioptoton

From Ancient Greek ὁμοιóπτωτον (homoióptōton, “in a like case”).

der

(rhetoric, poetry) A rhetorical figure in which the several parts of a sentence end with the same case, or inflection generally.


asteroidian

But you remained conservative, A changeless asteroidian.

1932, California Poets: An Anthology of 244 Contemporaries, page 706:

Whatever else can be said about the world inhabited by Lesabéndio and his fellow asteroidians, this much is certain: their proper names derive from the first sounds they emit, not from a procedure of designation akin to the establishment of technical terms, and the laws governing the waxing and waning of their bodies are unlike those under which the bodies on the surface of the earth fall.

2011, Peter Fenves, The Messianic Reduction: Walter Benjamin and the Shape of Time, page 230:

What gags Flora is that Rod blew the Saturnienne to protect the asteroidians against North American culture , even though that cut him off from one wife, one concubine, and one son.

2014, E. Hoffmann Price, Operation Longlife, page 157:

(science fiction) One who is from or lives on an asteroid.


molossus

From Latin molossus, from Ancient Greek μολοσσός (molossós), properly "belonging to the Molossians", a people in the eastern part of Epirus.

(poetry) A metrical foot of three long syllables.


iguanoid

Because rumor has it, that they are three times as ugly, meaner, greedier and war mongering than the Earthlings, could ever be. Yes, if you can believe it, they are even worse than the Iguanoids.

2013, R. J. Denardo, The Captain's Propensity: The Andromeda Incident II, page 179:

Iguanoids stand three foot five to five five and use their long tail for balance.

2021, Craig Campobasso, The Extraterrestrial Species Almanac, page 231:

The Chameleons, another species connected to the Iguanoids, are characterized as a colorful race of reptilians that serve as watchers or guards for the Draco Reptilians, informing them of the political events taking place around the galaxy.

2023, Malik Bade, The Matrix & The Forbidden Knowledge - Extraterrestrial Edition, page 161:

(science fiction) A type of reptilian (reptilian alien)


tripody

From tri + -pody, from Ancient Greek τρι- (tri-, “three”) and πούς, ποδός (poús, podós, “foot”).

(poetry) Three metrical feet taken together, or included in one measure.


atompunk

In fact, there was a fair amount of stuff around in the 60s and 70s that can only be explained as cross-dimensional leakage from an Atompunk universe.

2001 October 31, Simon Bradshaw, “Re: Steampunk Recommendations?”, in rec.arts.sf.written (Usenet), message-ID <memo.20011031191447.43761C@sjbradshaw.compulink.co.uk>:

Perfect "atompunk" feel – reactors with nervous engineers and analog controls.

2002 June 10, Mike Simone, “Re: Land Battleships”, in rec.arts.sf.science, rec.games.design (Usenet), message-ID <152bbdf6.0206101038.72e312be@posting.google.com>:

For the Legion, we're looking at 20th century futures rather than 19th. Analogies with steampunk might be "dieselpunk", "atompunk", or "rocketpunk" – but any Legion of Super-Heroes worthy of the name seems to be as far from the "punk" aspect as it's possible to get.

2004 March 6, Michael S. Schiffer, “Re: Earth-2 Legion Synopsis”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh (Usenet), message-ID <Xns94A49BD7E514mss2mediaonenet@130.133.1.4>:

According to a mailing list from the Netherlands, Atompunk is devoted to the cultural period (mostly of the United States) of between 1945 to 1965. While the moniker hasn't become a part of our country's vernacular yet (though I'm sure some of you already started using it ages ago), it sounds just annoyingly catchy enough to warrant a New York Times trend piece in about eight years.

2012 April 8, Elaine Chow, “Space Age Fetishism Getting Silly New Moniker: Atompunk”, in Gizmodo, archived from the original on 2016-08-28:

Atompunk covers the pre-digital period of 1945–1965, including mid-century Modernism, the Atomic Age and Space Age. Throw Roger Thornhill's suits in this basket, and everything ever worn on Mad Men. This takes us right up to the mid '60s, when the fictional worlds of yesterday abut the real worlds you grew up in.

2012, William J. Thompson, “Time Travel”, in Dress Like a Grownup!: A Complete Tutorial for the Average Guy, 2nd edition, volume 1, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, part 2 (Advanced Theory), page 55:

You keep imagining someone 20 years from now reading The Peripheral the way that we read Neuromancer today, perplexed at the now-unfathomable ubiquity of cassettes and modems. We laugh at the past or mine it for influence – think of steampunk, atompunk, dieselpunk, and the million other microgenres based on the incongruity of old societies and future tech – but someday, the future is going to do the same to us.

2014 October 27, Adi Robertson, “William Gibson’s ‘The Peripheral’: Looking Back at the Future: A Smart, Nuanced Twist on Time Travel”, in The Verge, archived from the original on 2017-05-05:

Additionally, while [Sebastian] Faulks aspires to write as [Ian] Fleming, he takes care to increase the serving of action, in fact including some interesting bits of atompunk—a nuclear-powered ekranoplan, Vulcan bombers.

2015, Nader Elhefnawy, The Forgotten James Bond, [s.l.]: [s.n.]:

(science fiction) A subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the society and technology of the Atomic Age (c. 1945–1969).


hypospray

(chiefly science fiction) A kind of jet injector.


supersaga

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

(literature) A literary work composed of a number of discrete narratives.


pseudogothic

en-adj

pseudogothic (comparative more pseudogothic, superlative most pseudogothic)

more pseudogothic (comparative)
most pseudogothic (superlative)

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

Obviously, the style of romantic pseudogothic architecture was not invented by Isabel - the building at Puławy was preceded by several similar creations abroad and in Poland.

1980, Marek Rostworowski, The National Museum in Cracow, the Czartoryski Collection:

Even a regular reader of the most dreadful pseudogothic periodicals must have felt a frisson of horror.

1997, Jan Bondeson, A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, page 97:

The pseudogothic trappings that disfigure the first two cantos of Childe Harold are absent in Childe Harold III and IV, which we may discuss here as a unit even though the last canto was completed two years later in Italy.

2004, Harold Bloom, English Romantic Poetry, page 295:


Neogothic

Neogothic (comparative more Neogothic, superlative most Neogothic)

more Neogothic (comparative)
most Neogothic (superlative)

The travelling engineer Frencesco Senweignoter designed the church at Falzes (1851) and also the front of the mausoleaum for Archduke Reiner in the principal church in Bolzano. The latter is a pleasing and correct example of the Neogothic style.

1979, Sandro Gattei, Sandro Pirovano, Robert Mainardi, Trentino Alto Adige, page 464:

The earlier periods, the original and ideas-phases of German Neogothic, have been well written up in English; now Lewis's work fills an important gap in English-language works on the later period; indeed, so far, there is no comparable work in German either.

1992, Newsletter - Issues 47-65, page 90:

The Neogothic Revival style of the early 1900s sought to tame the excesses of the flamboyant High Victorian Gothic by turning to English Gothic architecture for inspiration.

1993, East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, City of Berlin intensive architectural/historical survey: final report:

His interest in architecture was always strongly linked to his sense of responsibility for the care and preservation of the built environment. In 1973 he published an article on Early Neogothic in Finland.

1995, Icon to Cartoon: A Tribute to Sixten Ringbom, page 22:

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, he made a series of designs in the Neogothic idiom of Martorell.

2000, Juan Bassegoda Nonell, Antonio Gaudi: Master Architect:

(architecture, literature) Alternative form of neogothic


catperson

I haven't seen one of my earliest acquaintances in the game, a catperson berserker named Silverkat, since Ugeta was just a lowbie.

2012, Timothy Rowlands, Video Game Worlds: Working at Play in the Culture of, EverQuest, Left Coast Press, →ISBN, page 69:

(fiction) An anthropomorphic feline, or a person who has characteristics of a cat on an otherwise human body, such as cat ears and a cat tail.

katmens

anthropomorphic feline, or person with characteristics of a cat


nekomimi

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

From Japanese 猫耳 (nekomimi), from 猫 (neko, “cat”) + 耳 (mimi, “ear”).

Thank you, Galen - I was pretty sure that she wasn't really a nekomimi, but this gives me some proof.

2005 February 17, Rob Kelk, “Re: DiGi Charat without her hat”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

(chiefly Japanese fiction) (by metonymy, coming from meronymy) A fictional character who has cat ears on an otherwise human body, and possibly other feline characteristics such as a tail.


epode

From Ancient Greek ἐπῳδός (epōidós); see epi-, ode.

(poetry) The after song; the part of a lyric ode which follows the strophe and antistrophe.

(poetry) A kind of lyric poem, invented by Archilochus, in which a longer verse is followed by a shorter one.


pocketphone

(dated or science fiction) A telephone that fits in one's pocket; a mobile phone.


B-story

In the B-story, Bart goes from metaphorically crying wolf to literally crying wolf when a timber wolf escapes from Krusty’s studio after getting freaked by loud noises. The wild beast ultimately menaces Bart in his schoolroom before Groundskeeper Willie strips down and saves the day by defeating the wolf in combat.

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

(authorship) A subplot that appears in a screenplay or script for a movie or television show; a subplot that concerns the side-characters or less important aspects of a television show.


atmo

(science fiction) atmosphere (of a planet)


raisonneur

(literature) A person in a play or book embodying an author's viewpoint.


Glyconian

Named after Glycon, an Ancient Greek poet, said to have written in this form.

(poetry) A kind of verse in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry, consisting of a spondee, a choriambus, and a pyrrhic.


ASCIIfy

en-verb

ASCIIfy (third-person singular simple present ASCIIfies, present participle ASCIIfying, simple past and past participle ASCIIfied)

ASCIIfies (present singular third-person)
ASCIIfying (participle present)
ASCIIfied (participle past)
ASCIIfied (past)

(orthography) To reduce extended Latin text to characters of the ASCII character set.


sea monk

[…] three sea monks being found in 1530, 1546 and 1549. In fact the first sea monk was not a sea monk at all, having been found in the Rhine. The second one was found near Copenhagen with a black head and the clothes of a monk and the final one was found near Hafnia (Copenhagen), tonsured like a monk. […] Nonetheless walruses remain a possible explanation for the occurence of sea monks prior to 1546.

2005, Steenstrupia, volume 29, pages 40-45:

Sea monks had failed to assert themselves into the popular imagination the way mermaids had. They lacked a certain appeal. The few pictorial depictions stuck a tonsured human head on a fish body, scaly fins and tail forming the monk's ...

2019, Holly MacArthur, Tin House 80: 20th Anniversary Edition:

(folklore) A sea creature in European folklore (in the 16th century), a sort of fish that resembled (and was sometimes robed or tonsured like) a European monk.


Pleiadean

(science fiction, ufology) An alien being from the Pleiades.


chaotics

As I see it, chaotics represents more of a general outlook, a set of ideas describing the world, including literary texts, in ways used in a number of different disciplines.

1999, Hans C. Werner, Literary texts as nonlinear patterns:

The very process of discovering chaotics and overturning established views of science and systems chimes with the emphasis in literature of the day on uncertainty and indeterminacy, free play of the signifier, and rewritings of various sorts.

2000, Gordon Slethaug, Beautiful Chaos, page xii:

(literature) A branch of literary and cultural studies based on chaos theory and the inherent structure of apparently chaotic systems.


vidphone

1989, Ron Goulart (ghostwriting for William Shatner), TekWar
The vidphone screen remained blank. “You're looking good, Jake, looking very good all things considered.” “Wish I could say the same for you, Wiz. Why the blackout?” “Reasons, I got my reasons,” came the whispering voice […]


eyephone

One system in the works in this country would have us wearing "eyephones," a helmet-like apparatus with a small TV screen […] With the eyephones, each eye will receive only one field, but filters will adjust the picture.

1979, Science digest: Volume 86, Issue 2:

Further along on the "naturalness of use" continuum are today's working VR projects where users are tethered by devices such as eyephones and datagloves.

1993, Diane M. Gayeski, Multimedia for Learning: Development, Application, Evaluation, page 82:

State-of-the-art eyephones (head mounted visual displays) are not considered to be suitable for providing a realistic or natural visual environment.

1997, Dafydd Gibbon, Roger Moore, Richard Winski, Spoken Language Characterisation, page 185:

The key element in this group of technologies is 'automatic head position tracking', which allows the wearer of an eyephone to scan a computer-generated landscape in a quasi-natural way.

1998, Richard Gough, Ric Allsopp, Claire MacDonald, On Tourism, page 12:

He locked the door, put the CLOSED sign up, and went into the back room where he found the boy still seated, cross-legged, as he'd left him, his face hidden by the massive old eyephones cabled to the open notebook in his lap.

1999, William Gibson, All Tomorrow's Parties:

“That apparatus you see on his head is an eyephone. Inside it are tiny video screens that are transmitting to its wearer images of an opponent on the other end […]

2008, Thomas Quealy, Is That You?, page 87:

(sometimes science fiction) A device that allows the wearer to watch video material as if immersed in the world being shown.


commlink

A great aurora spread across the heavens, and the Thukker infantrymen lost all hope as their commlinks went dead and the TACNET dropped offline. In that moment, each man understood that they were doomed.

2008, Tony Gonzales, Eve: The Empyrean Age:

Sheppard removed his commlink unit and attempted to access the engineering duty officer to report the occurrence.

(science fiction) A communications device.


v. a.

(epigraphy, obsolete) Acting in place of; from Latin vices agens.


Abgesang

/ˈɑp.ɡəˌzɑŋ/

Borrowed from German Abgesang; ab- (“down, from”) + Gesang (“song”).

(prosody, poetry, usually capitalized) Repetition of the same word or phrases for emphasis; epistrophe, especially the concluding section.


wanderstar

From wander + star, probably a calque of German Wandelstern (“planet”). Compare the historic term wandering star, like the German term ultimately a calque from Ancient Greek.

He had thumbed about in Chants of a Wander-Star last night in bed and wondered about the career of that marginal versifier — born out of his proper time and now remembered by Ackley in an era even less proper.

1994, Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror:

A thin scythe of moon was rising, near the white wanderstar of dawn or dusk.

He passed gulls, terns, cormorants as if they were standing still. Now and then a wander-star crossed the heavens: one of the metal eyes the ancients hung over Alifros to spy on their enemies.

2009, Robert V. S. Redick, The Red Wolf Conspiracy:

(science fiction, fantasy) A wandering star or other similar heavenly body; a comet; meteor; planet.


Vril

Coined by British statesman and author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in the 1871 science fiction novel The Coming Race, later titled Vril, apparently as a clipping of virile.

coined

These subterranean philosophers assert that by one operation of vril, which Faraday would perhaps call ‘atmospheric magnetism,’ they can influence the variations of temperature—in plain words, the weather; […]

1871, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (published anonymously), The Coming Race, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, page 47:

It devoted its time to the study of vril, and taught that the secret of vril could be divined by contemplating the structure of an apple sliced in half.

2003, John Michael Greer, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult, Llewellyn Publications, page 506:

I have written a second book, Vrilology, which explores the historic background of the Life Force, which we refer to as Vril, and another simple book explaining just what Vril is and how it can help people improve their lives, filling them with happiness, joy and prosperity.

2010, Robert Blumetti, Vril: The Life Force of the Gods, iUniverse, page 7:

(science fiction, mysticism) A controllable form of energy.


overskies

(science fiction) interplanetary, intergalactic.


overskies

(science fiction) Between planets (in the same or different system).


cursèd

en-adj

cursèd (comparative more cursèd, superlative most cursèd)

more cursèd (comparative)
most cursèd (superlative)

(poetry) Alternative form of cursed; used to specify a disyllabic pronunciation


skyship

(science fiction) A vehicle that flies through the sky.


hexameron

From Ancient Greek ἑξαήμερον (hexaḗmeron, “six-day”).

der

(literature) A treatise or sermon concerning the biblical creation story.


redskirt

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

From red + skirt. Patterned after redshirt, which derived from the tendency for male security officers, who wore red shirts, to die on episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Female crew members wore minidresses, but only one red-uniformed female character was killed during the series' run, in the episode "By Any Other Name."

Wasn't there that episode where the aliens turned everyone into little blocks of styrofoam, and one of the aliens turned a redskirt and a redshirt into cubes and crumbled one of them? And then Scotty got really drunk. I seem to recall that the redskirt bought it that time.

2007 February 10, Marc Goodman, “Re: Response to Steven Pinker's 'The Mystery of Consciousness'”, in alt.religion.kibology (Usenet):

(fiction, fandom slang, rare) An unimportant or expendable female character, especially one introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril faced by important characters.


monopody

(poetry) A measure of a single metrical foot.

(poetry, rare) A line comprising one such measure.


helijet

Tomiko waited less than an hour, then flew with Harfex to the area where Osden had reported himself the night before. But as the helijet hovered over the sea of purplish leaves, illimitable, impenetrable, she felt a panic despair.

1972, Ursula K. Le Guin, Vaster Than Empires and More Slow:

Suddenly there was a glare of fight and the sound of an explosion from one of the other helijets, the one carrying Blare Oblomot. Heshke gasped with shock, and saw the flaring skeleton of the jet plummeting earthward in the darkness.

2001, Barrington J. Bayley, Collision with Chronos, page 20:

The two men heard a sound from above, and looked up to see three police helijets hovering overhead.

2002, Moss Tosney, The Ten Percent Man, page 572:

(science fiction) A flying vehicle resembling a helicopter and/or a jet.


jazz poetry

(poetry, jazz) A form of poetry of the 1920s employing jazz-like rhythm or a feeling of improvisation.


holoprojection

(science fiction) A holographic projection.


holovid

/ˈhɒləʊˌvɪd/

4 March, 1973, Harlan Ellison, "The Day I Died"
I was on a publicity tour for the book, fresh from a talk show over holovid.

He motioned at the holovid, still running in the corner.

2003, Liz Moore, Noble Savage, page 200:

He took her over to the holovid projector and she watched the holovids taken by pilots flying along the length of the ship.

2008, Helgard de Barros, The Second Skin, page 164:

(science fiction) A holographic projection of a series of images, like a video recording.


holoprojector

“I like to keep an eye on my investments. Including an eye that not everyone knows about, which doesn’t show up unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Garson’s holo crossed the room to stand next to a counter. “I mean, I am an eccentric genius, after all.”
“So you can project yourself throughout this ship? Anywhere?”
“Not everywhere, but I’ve got holo projectors in most places. Paid for them myself.”

2017 November, N. K. Jemisin, Mac Walters, chapter 15, in Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation, 1st edition (Science Fiction), Titan Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 284–285:

(science fiction) A holographic projector.


dodecameter

/ˌdəʊdɛˈkæmɪtə(ɹ)/

(poetry) A complex line that consists of twelve metric feet.


Thuluth

(art, chiefly calligraphy) An Arabic script style.


choliambic

(poetry) Employing or relating to choliambs, or limping iambs.


choliamb

Latin choliambus, from Ancient Greek χωλίαμβος (khōlíambos).


ODP

orbital defense platform
orbital defense platform#English

(science fiction) Initialism of orbital defense platform.


penthemimeris

/ˌpɛnθɪˈmɪməɹɪs/

From Latin penthēmimeris, from Ancient Greek πενθημιμερής (penthēmimerḗs, “having five half-feet”): πέντε (pénte, “five”) + ἡμι- (hēmi-) + μέρος (méros, “part, metrical foot”).

πενθημιμερής

(poetry) A prosal group of two and a half feet.


prose poem

"He is the author of a very wild Mystery, or dramatic prose-poem, in which the Ocean, Mont-Blanc, and the Cathedral of Strassburg have parts to play."

1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, chapter 3, in Hyperion: A Romance:

Slayton made "Love Is All" the effort of his life. . . . It was a pure love-story, fine, elevated, romantic, passionate—a prose poem that set the divine blessing of love (I am transposing from the manuscript) high above all earthly gifts and honours.

1910, O. Henry, “A Sacrifice Hit”, in Whirligigs:

In form and spirit the book is unique, a simple romantic narrative transmuted by sheer glow of beauty into a prose poem.

1915, John Galsworthy, in Preface to Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (1904) by W. H. Hudson

So if you ask Lasseter about car love, you get an impromptu prose poem. "Car love," he says, "is the sound of a throaty V-8 rumbling and revving, the acceleration throwing you back in the seat—especially when you get on a beautiful, winding road and the light's dappling through the trees."

2006 May 14, Richard Corliss, “Get Your Motor Running”, in Time:

(literature) A literary text written in the manner of prose—without the fixed lines, rhyme, and meter often characteristic of poetry—but nonetheless clearly possessing some of the distinctive attributes of poetry, such as lyrical language, evocation of feeling, vivid imagery, metaphor, and linguistic devices like assonance or alliteration.


antiverbal

en-adj

antiverbal (comparative more antiverbal, superlative most antiverbal)

more antiverbal (comparative)
most antiverbal (superlative)

Though in very different ways, Wolfe, Capote, Mailer, and Didion each define their subjects as somehow beyond words — antiverbal or nonverbal, threatening or sublime, overpowering and intense or private and intuitive […]

1987, Wayne (Chris) Anderson, Style as Argument: Contemporary American Nonfiction (page 5)

Othello, Horatio, and Brutus strike me as notable exemplars of laconicism, but in Hotspur's case Shakespeare creates an antiverbal bias that is not so much philosophical as it is bound up in gender stereotype.

1989, Ronald L. Dotterer, Shakespeare: Text, Subtext, and Context, page 206:

(literature, semiotics) Opposing or avoiding the use of speech or words.

antiverbal

opposing or avoiding the use of speech or words


skybike

The creature was actually doing a neat job of demolition, using scissorlike claws to chop the sky-bike into small pieces.

1972, Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous With Rama:

(science fiction) A bicycle capable of levitation.


euth

en-verb

euth (third-person singular simple present euths, present participle euthing, simple past and past participle euthed)

euths (present singular third-person)
euthing (participle present)
euthed (participle past)
euthed (past)

Thereafter the job of euthing was transferred to the chief medical officer, who it was felt would have less emotional involvement.

1973, Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama:


subuniverse

(science fiction) A universe contained within another universe.


brainwipe

brainwipe (third-person singular simple present brainwipes, present participle brainwiping, simple past and past participle brainwiped)

brainwipes (present singular third-person)
brainwiping (participle present)
brainwiped (participle past)
brainwiped (past)

(transitive, science fiction) To mindwipe.


kitchen sink

The noun is derived from kitchen + sink. Sense 2.1 (“miscellaneous item or miscellany”) is probably from everything but the kitchen sink.
The adjective is derived from the noun. Sense 1 (“of or pertaining to a realist style of painting characterized by scenes of dull or untidy domestic interiors of urban working-class people”) was coined by the British art critic David Sylvester (1924–2001) in a December 1954 article entitled “The Kitchen Sink”: see the quotation.
The verb is a back-formation from kitchen-sinking (noun), which is derived from the noun.

back-formation

(by extension, drama, fiction, film, television, originally derogatory) Of or pertaining to a mid-20th-century (especially 1950s–1960s) genre of drama, fiction, etc., in Britain depicting the harsh lives of working-class people; also, of or pertaining to a film, novel, play, etc., of this genre.

työväestön arkielämää käsittelevä

of or pertaining to a genre of drama, fiction, etc., depicting the harsh lives of working-class people; of or pertaining to a film, novel, play, etc., of this genre


Stark

* As a Scottish and English surname, from the adjective stark.
* As a Jewish, German, and Swedish surname, from stark (“strong”), related to the above. This surname also appears in Czech and Slovak as Štark.

(fiction) The language spoken in the Ender's Game series, which is nearly identical to American English.


parallel world

(science fiction, sciences) A reality or world that exists simultaneously with ours, but independent of it.


villancico

From Spanish villancico, from villano (“peasant”), from Medieval Latin vīllānus (“villager”).

The villancicos are strophic, but they tend not to extend to the many strophes of narration that were typical of the romance. A standard form for a villancico strophe is ABBA, in which the first A is called the estribillo (refrain), the Bs represent the statement of the music for the copla (stanza) twice (as copla and mudanza), and the return of the estribillo as the vuelta.

2014, James Haar, editor, European Music, 1520–1640, Boydell & Brewer, →ISBN, page 447:

(music, poetry) A traditional Spanish (or Portuguese) folk song with short stanzas and a refrain; now especially common as a Christmas carol.

gabon-kanta

traditional Spanish or Portuguese folk song


sourstuff

From sour + stuff. Calque of German Sauerstoff (“oxygen”) and/or Dutch zuurstof (“oxygen”), both loose loan translations of French oxygène. See oxygen for more.

This is approximately the heat of exploding what the Germans call bang-gas (mixture of sourstuff and waterstuff), the result being liquid.

1887, The Electrical journal, volume 18, page 482:

For an outshow, the gang of water has two waterstuff unclefts bound to one sourstuff uncleft; the gang of rust has two iron and three sourstuff unclefts; [...]

Thus, everyday sourstuff has eight neitherbits with its eight firstbits, but there are also kinds with five, six, seven, nine, ten, and eleven neitherbits. A samestead is known by the tale of both kernel motes, so that we have sourstuff-13, sourstuff-14, and so on, with sourstuff-16 being by far the mostfound.

1997, Poul Anderson, All One Universe, →ISBN:

“Best you and your thane don your sourstuff masks now, Judge Scoglund,” Ankowaljuu said, returning to English so Park and Dunedin could not misunderstand him.

2013, Harry Turtledove & L. Sprague deCamp, Down in the Bottomlands: And Other Places, →ISBN:

(chemistry, nonstandard, science fiction, rare) Oxygen.


zombie strip

(comics) A newspaper or magazine strip cartoon that is continued by others following the retirement or death of its originator.


telebooth

One point three parsecs from Earth a heartbeat was being monitored by an Amneshahn telebooth.

2005, J. E. Hoyes, The Empath of Amneshah, Book One: Turba, page 3:

We have telebooths that take us considerable distances in an instant.

2007, Charles Edward Harris, Suns of God, page 196:

(science fiction) A booth from which one can teleport to another location.


starliner

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

(science fiction) A large starship capable of transporting many passengers.


Metropolis

My city need a hero, so I treat it like Metropolis / And it's a few bad Lois Lanes I can't name

2012, “Higher”, in Detroit, performed by Big Sean:

(fiction) A fictional city appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, best known as the home of Superman.


grimdark

/ˈɡɹɪmˌdɑɹk/

From grim (adjective) + dark (adjective), inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000 (its rulebook first published in September 1987): “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”

(literature) The literary genre of speculative fiction that is amoral, dystopian, or violent.


Stygian

Stygians – natives of Styx

1940, Edmond Hamilton, Calling Captain Future, page 55:

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Styx (a moon of Pluto).


technopath

(parapsychology, science fiction) A person with techno-telepathic ability, capable of reading the electrical signals of devices, such as computers, around them.


cyberpath

Claire nodded, remembering that Micah was, in essence, a cyberpath. He could mentally convince electronics and machines to do pretty much whatever he wanted.

2015, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Heroes Reborn - Book 5: Save The Cheerleader, Destroy The World:

(parapsychology, science fiction) A person with techno-telepathic ability, capable of reading the electrical signals of electronic devices (such as computers) around them.


Priapean

(poetry) A kind of hexameter verse so constructed as to be divisible into two portions of three metrical feet each, generally having a trochee in the first and fourth feet and an amphimacer in the third; applied also to a regular hexameter verse when so constructed as to be divisible into two portions of three feet each.


classical language

en-noun

classical language (plural classical languages)

(literature, linguistics) An ancient language that has an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, and has a large and rich body of ancient literature.

古典語言

ancient language with a rich literary tradition


amoebaeum

Latin amoebaeus, from Ancient Greek ἀμοιβαῖος (amoibaîos, “alternate”).

uder

The third eclogue of Virgil is an amoebaeum.

(poetry) A poem in which persons are represented as speaking alternately.


telecommunicator

(science fiction) A telecommunication device of various kinds.


thermokinesis

en-noun

thermokinesis (countable and uncountable, plural thermokineses)

(fiction) The ability to manipulate the motion of molecules, slowing them down or speeding them up, thus changing temperature in the immediate vicinity with the power of one's mind. This is a wide spectrum ability than simply pyrokinesis or cryokinesis.


microkinesis

It features a fully coded Talent system including 'pathing, 'porting, merging, clairvoyance, clairaudience and microkinesis.

1998 October 10, Greg Kempe, “AD: [tinymush] TowerMUSH - AM's Tower and the Hive books”, in rec.games.mud.announce (Usenet):

In our telekinesis case, the psi. might pick up microkinesis or macrokinesis at a certain level.

2000 April 5, Kelly Ross Pederson, “Re: 3E psionics ideas?”, in rec.games.frp.dnd (Usenet):

[…], to arrange for him to be treated by a Guild medic who could repair the heart with microkinesis.

2014, Alexandra Hughes, Marked, Penguin Group, page 55:

(fiction) The ability to move objects and effect matter on a microscopic, molecular, atomic and subatomic level with the power of one's mind.


erom

(literature) A blend of erotica and romance.


godsdamn

"Thet!" he half-shouted, his voice deeper than one would expect coming from his frame. "Godsdamn it! You know the bloodmages are supposed to be notified [...]"

1994, Ed Stark, The fifth horseman, →ISBN, page 7:

“Godsdamn, Airell.” He pushed himself from the bench and began pacing.

2006, Cheyenne McCray, Seduced by Magic, →ISBN, page 55:

(vulgar, nonstandard, slang, fiction, fantasy) An expression of anger, surprise, or frustration.


godsdamn

Every godsdamn crevice and crack and water tank in the city would be a fucking encampment.

2004, China Mieville, The Scar, →ISBN, page 164:

(vulgar, nonstandard, slang, fiction, fantasy) Damned by gods; used as an intensifier.


Kaguya

Borrowed from Japanese 赫映, かぐや (Kaguya).

(Japanese folklore) The protagonist of 赫映姫の物語 (Kaguya-hime no Monogatari, “The Tale of Princess Kaguya”), a mysterious girl from the moon, discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant.

かぐや姫

Japanese folklore: mysterious girl from the moon


robochef

These robochefs in the better apartment buildings really knew how to broil a sirloin.

1968, William R. Burkett, Sleeping Planet, page 163:

(science fiction) A machine that prepares and dispenses meals.


antiromance

Congreve articulates here for the English a distinction already implicit in such antiromances as Don Quixote (1605), Charles Sorel's Berger extravagant (1627-28), or Paul Scarron's novels[…]

1990, Julie Stone Peters, Congreve, the Drama, and the Printed Word, page 114:

(literature) A novel or other work that rejects the conventions of the romance form.


Crowley

(fantasy fiction) The name of a demon, found in several different works of fiction by several different authors. Named in reference to Aleister Crowley, a famous 19th-century occultist.


astroship

The astroships — as we have named the future space vehicles — will be much more comfortable than the Apollo cabins.

1969, Illustrated weekly of Pakistan, page 75:

But we'd need to coordinate our efforts with another astroship.

1999, Joseph Neil Schulman, Brad Linaweaver, Profile in Silver: And Other Screenwritings, page 472:

If these are astroships from someplace besides our specific, physical universe, maybe they come from a place where our laws of physics do not apply, where there is no such thing as velocity/momentum.

2007, Kelly D. Bell, Visitors: A New Look at UFOs:

(science fiction) A spaceship; a starship.


Sol II

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

(poetic, science fiction) An alternate name for the planet Venus.


Sol V

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

(poetic, science fiction) An alternate name for the planet Jupiter.


Sol IV

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

(poetic, science fiction) The planet Mars.


Sol I

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

(poetic, science fiction) The planet Mercury.


Chauceresque

en-adj

Chauceresque (comparative more Chauceresque, superlative most Chauceresque)

more Chauceresque (comparative)
most Chauceresque (superlative)

/ˌtʃɔːsəˈɹɛsk/

/ˌt͡ʃɔsəˈɹɛsk/

a shocking word of Chauceresque earthiness

2011, Melvin J. Lasky, Media Warfare: The Americanization of Language, volume 3, page 35:

Thrust together in a small vehicle for hours, or even days, they would have no choice but to get to know each other and the result might be a Chauceresque exchange of stories.

2011, Mike Paterson, Inside Dickens' London, page 125:

(literature) Reminiscent of the style of Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1343–1400), major English poet of the Middle Ages.


Parnassianism

The leading poets of Parnassianism, like Machado, were utterly respectable and middle classs, good family men; many were bureaucrats, and they were proud that they had freed poets from "the obligation to wear their hair long" (Bilac, in Broca, 1960:7). Symbolism was enormously influential in almost every other Western culture; it never had a chance in Brazil, in a literary world dominated by Parnassianism and its disciples.

1983, David T. Haberly, Three Sad Races: Racial Identity and National Consciousness in Brazilian Literature, Cambridge University Press, page 100:

The autonomy of art, the distaste for the bourgeois world, the heightening of artifice, the affinity for sculpture and architecture, the use of exotic imagery in an objective way— all these are general elements of Parnassianism that seem to have found their way into Salammbô.

1995, David Weir, Decadence and the Making of Modernism, University of Massachusetts Press, page 36:

Positioned between the rise of Parnassianism and Symbolism in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the drastic innovations of Modernism in 1911, the period from 1900 to 1911 brought no dramatic changes of direction to Brazilian poetry.

1996, Marta Peixoto, “11: Brazilian Poetry from 1900 to 1912”, in Roberto Gonzalez Echevarría, Enrique Pupo-Walker, editors, The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, page 233:

(literature) A French literary style which began during the positivist period of the 19th century.


Parnassian

Parnassian (comparative more Parnassian, superlative most Parnassian)

more Parnassian (comparative)
most Parnassian (superlative)

From Parnassus, from Latin Parnassus, from Ancient Greek Παρνασσός (Parnassós).

[…] at last, — this is the point to be marked, - they can see things in this Parnassian way and describe them in this Parnassian tongue, without further effort of inspiration.

1864, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and prose, Penguin Books, published 1954, page 157:

But in Parnassian pieces you feel that if you were the poet you could have gone on as he has done, you see yourself doing it, only with the difference that if you actually try you find you cannot write his Parnassian.

1864, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and prose, Penguin Books, published 1954, page 158:

'Behold', 'dream a dream', 'mingle': these here have something of the plangent tremulousness which comes when Tennyson is writing 'Parnassian' verse.

1989, Christopher Bruce Ricks, Tennyson, →ISBN, page 212:

One might be tempted to read this conjoining of exoticism and sensuality as a Parnassian exercise, until one reads the rest of the poem: […]

c. 2002, Émile J. Talbot, Reading Nelligan, McGill-Queen's University Press, →ISBN, page 166:

(poetry, from Gerard Manley Hopkins' writings) Describing a style of poetry or language which can only be created by poets, but not in the language of inspiration.

The Parnassian theory of art is mere imbecility.

1895, Degeneration, New York: D. Appleton and Company, translation of Entartung by Max Simon Nordau, page 270:

(literature, historical) Of or relating to the Parnassianism movement of French poetry in the years 1850 to 1900, whose adherents rejected Romanticism and instead favored classicism with its formal structure and emotional detachment.


biopath

One biopath revealed masked tuberculosis with 14 of 46 patients, while another biopath only revealed this problem in 1 of 12.

1996, Sarah Cant, Ursula Sharma, Complementary and Alternative Medicines: Knowledge in Practice, page 123:

Biopaths like this one were low-rated telepaths whose powers lay in speaking to bodies rather than minds.

2017, K. Hippolite, The Rocket Girl's Tale, unnumbered page:

However, all telepathic biopaths were open to the committee members, who closed their eyes to listen to the sing-song voice of their first alien on planet Orthus.

2019, Darryl Gopaul, Encyclopedia Library, unnumbered page:

(parapsychology, science fiction) A person with the telepathic ability to manipulate the physiology (e.g. heart rate, breathing or brainwaves) and voluntary motor functions of other people or organisms.


Vegan

Tommy looked deflated. He stepped back slightly, shaking his head. "Never saw such a resemblance. Are you a Vegan?" "No," Bart lied flatly. "Aldebaran. David Briscoe."

1963, Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Colors of Space:

(science fiction) Someone from the vicinity of the star Vega.


ringworld

From ring + world, introduced by Larry Niven in the novel Ringworld (1970).

(science fiction) An artificial megastructure in space, consisting of a rotating ring encircling a star and having an inhabitable inner surface with gravity produced through centripetal force.


astroengineering

(science fiction) The construction of megastructures in space by technologically advanced beings.


Betelgeusian

(astronomy, science fiction) Relating to the star Betelgeuse or to inhabitants of the Betelgeuse system.


Betelgeusian

(science fiction) An inhabitant of the Betelgeuse system.


Betelgeusian

(science fiction) The language spoken by Betelgeusians.


mimiamb

From mimiambus, possibly from French mimiambe, from Ancient Greek μιμιάμβους (mimiámbous, “mime-iamb”), from μῖμος (mîmos, “actor, imitator”) + ἴαμβος (íambos, “iamb”).

der

Its discovery, after a sleep of some five centuries and a half, will be as great a surprise to meteorologists as a new classical text, such as the ‘Mimiambs’ of Herondas, to Greek scholars.

1891 November 28, The Athenæum, number 3344, London: J. Lection, →OCLC, page 726:

For example, the school scene in the third mimiamb, the outburst of fierce jealousy on the part of Bitinna in Herondas and that of the Oxyrhynchus μοιχευτρία, the obscene conversation in the sixth mimiamb, and the tales of adultery committed by women which, according to Aristocles, formed the chief subject of the poems recited by the λυσιῳδοί.

1917, Ph[ilippe] E[rnest] Legrand, translated by James Loeb, The New Greek Comedy, London: W. Heinemann; New York, N.Y.: G.P. Putnam's Sons, →OCLC, page 524:

Matius's mimiambs have not survived complete, but the extant remains may not be unrepresentative of his general style of writing.

2014, Costas Panayotakis, “Hellenistic Mime and Its Reception in Rome”, in Michael Fontaine, Adele C. Scafuro, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 387:

(literature, Ancient Greece, rare) A short humorous dramatic scene in verse.


antiliterary

en-adj

antiliterary (comparative more antiliterary, superlative most antiliterary)

more antiliterary (comparative)
most antiliterary (superlative)

(literature) Relating to antiliterature; defying the conventions of literature.


rhyme royal

en-noun

rhyme royal (countable and uncountable, plural rhymes royal)

This term was reportedly first used in the mid-1800s.

Perhaps the most engaging of the Rowley poems are "An Excelente Balade of Charitie," written in the rhyme royal; and "The Bristowe Tragedie," in the common ballad stanza.

1898, Henry Augustin Beers, chapter 10, in 18th Century: A History of English Romanticism:

(uncountable, poetry) A form of English verse consisting of seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter having a rhyme scheme of ababbcc, first represented in English in works by Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400).

Chaucer for years before the Prologue to LGW had been writing heroic couplets at the close of each of his rhymes royal.

1938 Jan, H. S. V. Jones, “Brief Mention”, in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, volume 37, number 1, page 126:

(countable, poetry) A single stanza of this form.


starbase

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

(science fiction) A base (for trading, military operations, etc.) located in space, among the stars.


slugthrower

He had been pulling the trigger of his slugthrower all this time, but now the firing pin clicked at last upon an empty firing chamber.

1965 December, Gordon R. Dickson, “Warrior”, in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, volume 76, →ISSN, page 71:

Each had a holstered sidearm: slugthrower, not stunner.

1978, Poul Anderson, The Avatar, New York: Berkley, →ISBN, →OL, page 162:

From the confident manner with which she held her long-barreled slugthrower, Mirina guessed that some of the medals were for marksmanship.

1996, Jody Lynn Nye, The Ship Errant, Baen, →ISBN, →OL, page 65:

(science fiction) A firearm that fires bullets.


Eldar

→ Russian: Эльда́р (Elʹdár)

Coined by J. R. R. Tolkien as Quenya Eldar, plural of Elda.

(science fiction) An elflike race of aliens from Warhammer 40,000, now known as Aeldari.

Эльда́р

magical humanoids from Tolkien's writings


bat'leth

From Klingon betleH, short for batlh'etlh (“sword of honor”).

It is a bat'leth. It belonged to my father... It has been in our family for ten generations.

1990 November 5, “Reunion”, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 4, episode 7, spoken by Worf (Michael Dorn):

The U.K. is looking to clean up its streets with a knife amnesty program, so you can imagine their surprise when a Klingon, er, excuse me, a Klingon fan, turned in a replica Bat’leth over the weekend.

2008 August 25, Jack Loftus, “U.K. Knife Amnesty Program Turns Up Klingon Bat’leth, No Sign of Worf”, in Gizmodo Australia, archived from the original on 2016-03-04:

Officers searched the area but didn't find the robber or the weapon, which was described as a "bat'leth."

2009 February 4, Kieran Nicholson, “Klingon sword used in two Colorado Springs heists”, in Denver Post:

Howard: Why did you bring that?
Sheldon: No weapon strikes more fear into a man's heart than a Klingon bat'leth.
Leonard: OK, let's get clear on something. We just gonna tell this guy to transfer all your stuff back into your account and then be on our way. No one's bat'lething anybody.

2011 March 31, “The Zarnecki Incursion” (15:59), in The Big Bang Theory, season 4, episode 19, spoken by Howard Wolowitz, Sheldon Cooper, and Leonard Hofstadter (Simon Helberg, Jim Parsons, and Johnny Galecki):

(science fiction) A double-ended curved blade weapon with spiked protrusions, controlled by grips along its back, used by Klingons in Star Trek.


selfcest

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

And this is where selfcest comes in. For those unfamiliar with Adventure Time, it has two series: the main, phallogocentric one, Adventure Time, and another spin-off version, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, in which gender-flipped versions of the original characters are presented. Marceline spawns Marshall Lee, Jake turns into Cake, Finn becomes Fionna, Princess Bubblegum is chewed up and spat out as Prince Gumball… you get the picture. Enter Fanfiction, which causes them to hook up. Creepy, yes.

2013, Boo Patrick, "Selfcest", Manifesto (University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts), April 2013, page 8

Several Loki fans shared their horror over the idea of Loki and Sylvie getting together, as it would be an example of selfcest.

2021 July 2, Sabrina Barr, “Loki fans defend Marvel series over ‘queerbaiting’ claims as director says God of Mischief’s bisexuality won’t be explored further”, in Metro, UK:

'"The Time Traveler's Wife” having selfcest was not on my 2022 bingo card,' another [Twitter] user commented.

2022 May 25, Erica Tempesta, “'Selfcest was not on my 2022 bingo card': The Time Traveler's Wife baffles viewers with 'wild' and 'disturbing' oral sex scene between the HBO show's protagonist and HIMSELF”, in The Daily Mail:

(fandom slang, fiction) Sexual activity with an alternate version of oneself, such as a clone, duplicate, alter ego, or a version of oneself from a different time or alternate universe.


Menippean

en-adj

Menippean (comparative more Menippean, superlative most Menippean)

more Menippean (comparative)
most Menippean (superlative)

Without a doubt, the most unusual, the most conspicuous, and the most Menippean feature of the curious verbal landscape of Finnegans Wake is the ten 'thunderclaps.'

1997, Eric McLuhan, The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, University of Toronto Press, page x:

The most Menippean of these were written by John Harington of Kelston, who was first banished from court for his 1596 Metamorphosis of Ajax (a satire against the Earl of Leicester and a pun on 'a jakes,' the first flushing toilet in Britain, of Harington's own design), followed by An anatomie of the metamorphosed Ajax, and Ulysses upon Ajax.

2011, Mark Somos, Secularisation and the Leiden Circle, BRILL, page 249:

Salman Rushdie's new work of 2017, his novel The Golden House, is not just a Menippean satire; it is a novel about Menippean satire.

2019, Amy L. Friedman, Postcolonial Satire: Indian Fiction and the Reimagining of Menippean Satire, Rowman & Littlefield (Lexington Books), page 128:

However plausible such arguments, I should like respectfully to disagree. My position is closer to that of Dustin Griffin in his recent book—that the ludic is inherent in satire, especially the more menippean kind.

2021, J. Douglas Canfield, Tricksters and Estates, University Press of Kentucky, unnumbered page:

(literature) Of or relating to a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes instead of specific individuals.


spacedock

(science fiction) A place where spacecraft can dock.


Conehead

(fiction) One of a fictional race of humanoid aliens with conical skulls.


dodoitsu

(poetry) A specific form of Japanese poem without rhyme, having lines of 7-7-7-5 morae.


Amalthean

/æməlˈθiːən/

(science fiction) A native or inhabitant of Amalthea.


cybersurgeon

(science fiction) A robot that performs the duties of a surgeon.


robodoc

Other than the most exceptional transplants, all operations were performed by cybersurgeons. These were robodocs, ArtAn nets hooked up to precision machines. They were exact and fast and dexterous.

2005, Alan Robbins, A Small Box of Chaos, page 64:

Sheppard observed several crew begin installing some of the robodocs in the medbay who would act as triage and initial aid to any wounded crew members or space marines.

(science fiction) A robot that performs the duties of a doctor or surgeon.


electrovore

/ɪˈlɛktɹəvɔː(ɹ)/

In Cosmos, Carl Sagan speculates on the existence of extraterrestrial civilisations, which he characterises pretentiously by means of hypothetical summaries such as: "cryogen supercooled electrovores with neutron crystal dense packing and modular starminers ..."

1984 November 8, Peter Forbes, “The silicon solution”, in New Scientist:

! WE DO NOT CONSUME EARTH FOOD. WE ARE ELECTROVORES. IF YOU
! HAVE A SURGE PROTECTOR WE WOULD BE MOST OBLIGED.

1998 October 30, Rollin Thomas, “New Borg Graduate Student.”, in talk.bizarre (Usenet):

There were, Gregory knew, AIs residing within implants in dolphin brains now designed to bridge the linguistic barriers between the species, but those translations had only proven that dolphin brains were as alien to humans as the group minds of the abyssal electrovores inhabiting the under-ice ocean of Enceladus.

2013, Ian Douglas, Deep Space: Star Carrier, HarperCollins, →ISBN:

(science fiction) An organism or entity which feeds on electricity.


warp drive

(physics, science fiction) A technological device that warps spacetime to enable movement through space in a non-Newtonian manner.

(science fiction) An engine that allows a vessel to travel faster-than-light by manipulating spacetime to bypass Einstein's restrictive light barrier.


hard science fiction

Coined by American critic P. Schuyler Miller in 1957.

coin

(science fiction) A subgenre of science fiction that focuses on technical detail and scientific accuracy.


soft science fiction

After hard science fiction, attributed to Peter Nicholls.

(science fiction) A subgenre of science fiction that focuses on the nature of its speculative societies or that employs pseudoscience.


kharja

Borrowed from Arabic خَرْجَة (ḵarja, literally “final”).

bor+

(poetry) The final refrain of a muwashshah.


workscreen

(rare, sometimes science fiction) A computer display that one can work at.


Kinbotean

(literature) A proponent of an interpretation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel Pale Fire according to which the ostensible author John Shade is in fact an invention of the character Charles Kinbote.


science fact

en-noun

science fact (countable and uncountable, plural science facts)

From science + fact, by analogy with science fiction.

Is it that science fact has gone beyond science fiction?

2004, Ray Bradbury, Steven L. Aggelis, Conversations with Ray Bradbury, page 108:

It is based on science fact.

2005, Rosemary Feasey, Creative Science: Achieving the WOW Factor with 5-11 Year Olds:

Is it real or fictional? Does it represent science fiction, or does it represent science fact?

2013, Nick Hubble, Aris Mousoutzanis, The Science Fiction Handbook:

(fiction) Reality, especially scientific and technological reality, as contrasted with what is depicted in science fiction.


paradelle

Coined by Billy Collins circa 1997; believed to be from a blend of parody + villanelle.

(poetry) A ridiculously restrictive poetic form consisting of four sestets that must repeat lines and reuse all previous words according to a fixed pattern.


saas-bahu

(India, fiction) A genre of drama fiction concerning the relationship between the controlling evil mother of a husband (mother-in-law) and her dominated, downtrodden, meek daughter-in-law.


Selenite

From Selene (“the Moon”) + -ite. From Ancient Greek Σελήνη (Selḗnē, “goddess of the Moon”).

uder

My first impression was of some clumsy quadruped with lowered head. Then I perceived it was the slender pinched body and short and extremely attenuated bandy legs of a Selenite, with his head depressed between his shoulders.

1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Selenite’s Face”, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC, page 136:

(science fiction) Synonym of Lunarian (“inhabitant of the Moon”).


Selenite

a Selenite colony

"Come, Diana [a dog]," said he; "come, my girl! thou whose destiny will be marked in the cynegetic annals; […] thou who art rushing into interplanetary space, and wilt perhaps be the Eve of all Selenite dogs! come, Diana, come here."

1873, Jules Verne, “Round the Moon: A Sequel to From the Earth to the Moon. Chapter III. Their Place of Shelter.”, in Louis Mercier [i.e., Lewis Page Mercier], Eleanor E[lizabeth] King, transl., From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: And a Trip Round It. […], New York, N.Y.: Scribner, Armstrong & Company, published 1874, →OCLC, page 170:

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


Middle-Earth

(fiction) Alternative letter-case form of Middle-earth


Earthship

Compound of Earth + ship. In the architectural sense, coined by American architect Michael E. Reynolds.

coinage

(science fiction) A spaceship originating from or belonging to Earth.


plasteel

Grunting, he heaved to his feet and looked out the lucilite port at the surface of Saturn. Cold and rugged it was, lashed by furious gales that tore with futile fury at the plasteel dome which Elmer Dunk called home.

1942 March, Gord Peck, “He Was Poor...But He Was Honest”, in Censored, volume 1, number 3, St. Andrew's College, Aurora, page 7:

The passage, two paces deep, opened through a heavy door into a square office lighted by golden glowglobes. Jessica passed her hand across the door as she entered, was startled to identify plasteel.

(science fiction) A fictional durable substance.


battlesuit

(science fiction) A technologically enhanced suit worn in battle for protection, camouflage, etc.


Titanean

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


oxia

From the Ancient Greek ὀξεῖᾰ (oxeîa), an elliptical use for ἡ ὀξεῖᾰ προσῳδῐ́ᾱ (hē oxeîa prosōidíā, “the acute accent”) — ἡ (hē, the nominative feminine singular form of ὁ, ho, “the”, the definite article) + ὀξεῖᾰ (okseia, the nominative feminine singular form of ὀξῠ́ς, oksus, “sharp”, of sound “shrill”, of tones “high-pitched”) + προσῳδῐ́ᾱ (prosōdiā, “variation in pitch of the speaking voice”, “pronunciation of a syllable on a certain pitch”, “a mark [i.e., a diacritic] indicating normally unwritten differences of pronunciation, viz. vowel quantity, breathing, and pitch”).

(orthography and typography) An Ancient Greek pitch-marking diacritic: ⟨ ´ ⟩; written atop vowels, it denotes high pitch on short vowels, and rising pitch on long vowels and diphthongs.

οξεία

Ancient Greek diacritic marking high or rising pitch


outworlder

It is a thing no outworlder may know except those very few who have been involved.

1967, “Amok Time”, in Star Trek: The Original Series, season 2, spoken by Spock (Leonard Nimoy):

He speaks with the outworlder tongue!
What else were you expecting from a male, sister Dykstra?

1995, Among Friends And Enemies, Part 3: The Magical Mystery Tour (Gen13), volume 2, number 3 (comic), page 19:

Let each government make sure that rich and poor alike, dirtborn and outworlder, Terran and Variant, all have equal access to the outernet and its resources.

1998, Celia S. Friedman, This Alien Shore:

(science fiction, fantasy) One who comes from another planet, or from a society so culturally foreign as to be a different world.


chapter book

Such books are typically divided into short chapters, to suit limited attention spans.

(authorship) An illustrated storybook intended for intermediate readers, generally aged from 7 to 10.


magical Negro

(film, literature) A black supporting stock character in media, especially American cinema, who is portrayed as coming to the aid of a white protagonist.


pantropy

From Ancient Greek παν- (pan-, “all”) + τροπή (tropḗ, “transformation”, literally “turning”), coined by American science-fiction writer James Blish and first attested in 1952.

(science fiction) The process of adapting humans through genetic and/or cybernetic means to thrive in environments otherwise inhospitable to them, such as outer space, the deep sea or other planets.


hengeyokai

1985, David Cook, Oriental Adventures, TSR Inc., →ISBN
Hengeyokai are intelligent, shape-changing animals. Several subraces exist, each a different type of animal. They are found throughout the Oriental world, usually on the fringes of human-settled lands.

1998-01-28, Lee Gold, Re: B5 Filk: You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Us Sinclair, rec.music.filk
If a hengeyokai fails to concentrate (or perhaps gets distracted -- due to being beaten, seeing a mouse, fatigue), the human form's ears may get pointed or a tail may appear.

Hengeyokai transfer between forms almost instantly, though when in human form, they often retain some mark of characteristic of their true animal nature.

2001, Laurence C. Bush, Asian Horror Encyclopedia: Asian Horror Culture in Literature, Manga and Folklore, Writers Club Press, page 69:

2013-10-12, Jasin Zujovic, Hengeyokai level adjustment, rec.games.frp.dnd
I've been watching Inuyasha yesterday (too bad that's a German dub and I can understand almost nothing) and that got me wanting to make myself a hengeyokai character... and then I remembered the level adjustment.

(folklore) A legendary Japanese animal with the ability to shapeshift into human form.


scoutship

(science fiction) A spaceship that carries out reconnaissance.