telepath n.

a person or being with the ability to use telepathy

In 1885 quotation, denoting an apparition produced using telepathy, and probably punning on telegraph boy.

Paranormal

  • [1885 Nation (N.Y.) 5 Nov. 375/1

    The famous occasion when Castor and Pollux were the telepath boys.]

  • 1889 Leeds Mercury 15 Aug. 4/6

    The telepath’s ‘object’ is usually actuated by nothing but the purest curiosity as to the amount of unconscious fraud exercised in the reading of his thoughts.

  • 1907 Westminster Gazette 9 Feb. 3/2

    There is a pleasant mystery about the origin of the 9-in. shell which startled Selsey the other day… It looks as though the telepaths would have to be called in to account for its origin.

  • 1959 J. White Visitor at Large in New Worlds Science Fiction June 8 page image James White bibliography

    His new assistant was not a telepath…but it was sensitive to feelings and would therefore have been aware of Conway’s curiosity.

  • 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones viii. 76 Marion Zimmer Bradley bibliography

    Vague unrest crystallized…into one of those flashes of prevision which touch a telepath in moments of stress.

  • 1978 J. Silbersack in F. Leiber Change War Introd. p. xv

    Which of three alien telepaths is guilty of murder?

  • 1997 J. Swift Bright, Bright as Day in Interzone Nov. 42/2 page image Avon Swofford bibliography

    I think she must be a telepath. How else could she have known those names and the details of the accident?

  • 2008 A. M. Steele Galaxy Blues in Asimov’s Science Fiction Feb. 93 page image Allen Steele bibliography

    A sly smile; Ted didn’t have to be a telepath to know a lie when he heard it.

Research requirements

antedating 1889

Last modified 2021-01-12 11:33:14
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.