a (typically small and reinforced) window in a vehicle or structure designed to operate in space
Now also used as a standard (non-SF) term, esp. in reference to vehicles or structures that operate underwater.
Dean moved half consciously to the view-porte [sic] that was tilted at an angle to bring into focus the panorama of the streets.
If we have ten million men that never see Mephisto from anything but the viewports of the transports, we'll be better off than if we were blasted to every last man for not having enough of them.
He saw something flicker past the control viewports, something like a little ship, with a fiery tail, going the same way on a roughly parallel orbit.
But more wonderful still was the soft, steady light from the myriad of stars that were suspended in the black velvet of the viewports.
You just don’t look through viewports very often.
Fog closed over the view-port.
The viewports…were always the first to go.
The bright marbles of its eyes were cut from the synthetic ruby viewport of the ship that brought the first Tessier up the well.
I made it to the viewport at the same time.
What rose up…betrayed no hint of doorway, viewport, or any structural joining.
Devon moved forward to the control seat, adjusted their position to the Wanderer’s, and degridded back into spaceplus. Both of them rushed over to the viewport.
The animated purple dinosaur pirouettes and prances in the middle of her viewport, throwing a diamond-tipped swizzle stick overhead.
As soon as the jump was complete, they all crowded onto the bridge to look out through the viewport. Nobody was happier than MacAllister to see the mists go away. The transdimensional fogscape reminded him that the real world was far stranger than anything humans had dreamed up, with its quantum effects, time running at different rates depending on whether you’re standing on the roof or in the basement, objects that aren’t there unless someone looks at them.
antedating 1935
Nat Schachner, in Astounding Stories
Earliest cite in OED2: 1957; later updated to 1942 for OED Online.
Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
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entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
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