sapient n.

an intelligent alien

Aliens

  • 1960 P. J. Farmer Woman a Day vi. 30 page image Philip José Farmer bibliography

    The CWC might be utilizing the sapients because they possessed powers or advantages Terrestrials did not have.

  • 1979 M. Z. Bradley & P. E. Zimmer Survivors (1989) 7 Marion Zimmer Bradley Paul Edwin Zimmer bibliography

    There had been a time when Dane thought he would never tire of watching the crowds that thronged these streets, lizard-men, cat-men, bird-men—or, to use the terminology of the Unity, the enormous Galactic civilization, protosaurians, protofelines, protoavians; and others, people of every conceivable species of sapient.

  • 1989 Asimov’s Science Fiction Dec. 175/1

    Aliens from another dimension have constructed a complex artificial solar system millions of years after the destruction of Earth and populated it with reconstructed humans, terrestrial life forms, and post-human higher Terrestrial sapients from Earth’s past.

  • 1999 J. May Orion Arm 61

    If the Earthlings who invaded them were reasonably enlightened—as Rampart was—primitive Indigenous Sapients often prospered.

  • 2000 B. Stableford Fountains of Youth xxvi. 116 Brian Stableford

    I was never happy about those war-addicted fools hijacking the label Homo sapiens. We're the ones who have the opportunity to be true sapients, and I think we ought to take it.

  • 2002 J. E. Czerneda To Trade Stars 300 Julie E. Czerneda

    ‘They do it so they can get away with eating other sapients?’ Ruti demanded in horror… ‘Only if those sapients invade their pool.’

  • 2005 C. Stross Accelerando vi. 249 Charles Stross bibliography

    The main life-form is an incredibly ornate corporate ecosphere, legal instruments breeding and replicating. They mug passing sapients and use them as currency.

Research requirements

antedating 1960
Earliest cite

P. J. Farmer "A Woman a Day"
Research History
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1989 cite from Norman Spinrad's book review column in Asimov's.
Douglas Winston submitted a 2002 cite from Julie Czerneda's "To Trade the Stars".
Michael Dolbear submitted a cite from a 1989 reprint of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Paul Edwin Zimmer's "The Survivors".
Ralf Brown located and Mike Christie submitted a 1968 cite from Robert Silverberg's "The Man in the Maze".
Malcolm Farmer submitted a 1999 cite from Julian May's "Orion Arm".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 1968 reprint of Philip José Farmer's "The Day of Timestop"; Jesse Sheidlower verified it in the 1960 first edition (under the title of "A Woman A Day").
Mike Christie checked the 1953 short story version and the cite does not appear there.
Douglas Winston submitted a 2000 cite from Brian Stableford's "The Fountain of Youth".

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.