Look Up Sci-Fi Terms with This New Online Dictionary
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What do you really know about terms like warp drives and transporters? You likely associate them with
Star Trek, but what else? You can expand your knowledge of these and other science-fiction words with the
Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, which we first learned about at
Winter Is Coming. Edited by its creator, Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer and former editor-at-large for the
Oxford English Dictionary, this new online resource is for more than checking the correct spelling of words like lightsaber. The tool defines sci-fi words and provides their history and earliest known uses.
One of the great joys of science fiction, whether you re a reader or a writer, is the constantly growing lexicon that always emerges anytime a new writer tries to weave their own science fictional universe. Whether creating new words whole cloth or repurposing old ones to give them new meaning, it s always fascinating to see the ways in which sci-fi works describe new technologies, new worlds, and new ways of looking at the universe. Now, one lexicographer is out to catalog them all, and the results of tracking the origins of these words might surprise you.
Last week, former Oxford English Dictionary editor at large and lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower launched The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, an expertly crafted and organized compendium of nearly 2,000 terms (and growing) from throughout sci-fi prose and fandom that attempts to probe the origins of and provide accurae definitions for sci-fi words and phrases ranging from aerocar to phaser to vibroblade and more.�
Sheidlower, a lexicographer who used to be an editor at large at the
Oxford English Dictionary, started the sci-fi dictionary while working there. He left the organization in 2013, but got permission from
O.E.D. to pick up the project from them in early 2020.
The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction is still a work in progress, but aficionados can already waste an hour or five pouring over the existing entries. “Teleport,” for example, a word one commonly connects with stories from the last century, can trace its roots back to 1878. “Warp Drive,” a word with strong connections to
Star Trek, can be traced back to almost 20 years before the original series.
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