a force field that protects something (such as a spaceship or a city) from potentially harmful objects or energy; a beam of energy that repels such objects; cf. shield n.
Also in combinations, as deflector beam, deflector screen, deflector shield.
They were talking about reaction-motors, meteorite deflectors, three-dimensional sextants, and such things with a fondness that only the two of them felt.
The magnetic deflectors of the fort would have been loaded to the uttermost.
The blasters are those beams of ravening destruction which take care of recalcitrant meteorites in a spaceship’s course when the deflectors can’t handle them. They are not designed as weapons, but they can serve as pretty good ones.
In those days no one had ever heard of deflectors, and a free passage through the Belt was a one in a thousand chance. Yet, being young and a bit cocky, I was willing to attribute it to my own spacemanship.
Ti-5’s serpentine bulk was hovering just outside the atmosphere. Presently they saw tiny flames far below as rockets raced toward them. As Ti-5 set the deflectors Donn swore. Rocket after rocket, some of quite formidable dimensions, swerved away and vanished.
We’ve returned fire with all phaser banks. Negative against his deflector screen.
The Enterprise is also equipped with navigational deflector beams which…sweep far ahead of the vessel’s path through space.
In flight, an automatic deflector field surrounds the ship to ward off all oncoming free-floating particles, which of course could be enormously destructive at such velocities.
The Enterprise, now with full deflectors, rocked slightly under each impact.
Vulcan cities were deflector screened against the worst weather.
Blimp technology would only divert the snowstones: there was no way to impart sufficient energy to fling them out of the system altogether. Eventually, then, they must return, to be diverted again. And one day, perhaps, a snowstone would arrive when the deflectors had temporarily failed, and snowstrike would devastate the planet.
In the blink of an eye, the big freighter was gone, with little more than a last glimpse of its forward deflector array.
antedating 1931
Miles Breuer, in Amazing Stories
Suggested by Randy Hoffman.
Last modified 2021-01-03 04:04:00
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.