Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
Order by: alphabetical | chronological
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| time machine n. (1894) | a device capable of transporting a person backwards or forwards in time n. |
| time opera n. (1953) | a subgenre of science fiction featuring adventure-driven, extravagantly dramatic plots based on time travel; a work in this genre |
| time paradox n. (1942) | a paradox caused by an action of a time traveller which alters history so that the action is no longer logically possible or sensible, such as travelling into the past to kill a dictator which leads to a peaceful world from which the time traveller would have had no reason to depart; cf. grandfather paradox n., temporal paradox n. |
| time-path n. (1934) | = timestream n. |
| time patrol n. (1955) | = time police n. |
| time police n. (1950) | officers who regulate time travel or other time-related phenomena; (specif.) officers who travel through time to attempt to prevent the past from being changed; a (government) body responsible for time-related phenomena |
| timequake n. (1954) | a sudden significant disturbance in the continuity of time; cf. time storm n., time-slip n. |
| time radio n. (1934) | a device that allows messages (but not physical objects) to be sent across time |
| time-slip n. (1941) | a rift or flaw in the fabric of time that allows travel between two or more periods of time or timelines; any accidental or unexplained movement between periods of time; cf. timequake n., time storm n. |
| time storm n. (1942) | a disturbance in time that can bring people and things from different times into the same timeline; cf. timequake n., time-slip n. |
| timestream n. (1931) | the sequence of all events in time, considered notionally as a flow capable of being altered to form different timelines |
| time track n. (1931) | = timeline n. |
| time travel n. (1914) | the activity of travelling into the past or future; hypothetical movement through time n. |
| time travel v. (1933) | to travel through time n. |
| time traveller n. (1894) | one who travels through time n. |
| time-travelling n. (1894) | the activity of travelling into the past or future; hypothetical movement through time |
| time-travelling adj. (1904) | that or who travels through time n. |
| time viewer n. (1940) | = chronoscope n. |
| time war n. (1950) | = changewar n. |
| time warp n. (1937) | a distortion of space-time by which people or objects at one point in time can be (instantly) moved to another, or within which time moves at a different speed |
| time warp v. (1969) | transitive to transport (something) from one time to another by a time warp; also intransitive with reflexive or passive meaning |
| time-warped adj. (1938) | transported from the past or future by a time warp n. |
| time-warping adj. (1940) | that creates a time warp; that moves (something) through time; (also) of or relating to a time warp |
| timey-wimey adj. (2007) | denoting a (complex) time-travel situation or story, esp. one characterised by time paradoxes |