sapient adj.

of an alien or machine: intelligent; having human-like intelligence

Robotics

Aliens

  • 1935 B. Olsen Who Deserves Credit? in Amazing Stories Feb. 81 page image Bob Olsen bibliography

    When EXPLORATION blazed through space…And found men, sapient, on Mars, He gained renown’s most honored place.

  • 1953 T. Cogswell Minimum Sentence in Galaxy Science Fiction 122/2 page image Theodore R. Cogswell bibliography

    ‘I ain’t paid to get lectured by cockroaches.’ ‘Is, one, inaccurate statement—terrestrial cockroach is not sapient being. Is, two obviously hostile manifestation.’

  • 1962 H. B. Piper Naudsonce in Analog Science Fact—Science Fiction Jan. 9/1 H. Beam Piper bibliography

    It was inhabited by a sapient humanoid race, and some of them were civilized enough to put it in Class V, and Colonial Office doctrine on Class V planets was rigid.

  • 1968 R. Silverberg The Man in the Maze in Worlds of If Apr. 15/2 page image Robert Silverberg bibliography

    Because the dragon wore protective clothing, and so was sapient? Sapient corpses were deliberately allowed to remain, Muller realized.

  • 1970 L. Niven Ringworld (1976) 73 Larry Niven bibliography

    Speaker, no sapient being ever interrupts a defense mechanism.

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

    There were several hundred planets in the Unity—and nearly as many more outside it—bearing sapient life; and over a hundred of them must have been represented in the crowds below.

  • 1982 S. Cooper Black Fire ix.178 Sonni Cooper bibliography

    The cataclysmic events should have destroyed all sapient life on the planet.

  • 1986 J. M. Dillard Demons i. 30 J. M. Dillard bibliography

    Vulcans dreamed, of course—most sapient creatures do.

  • 2000 P. Anderson Genesis 161 Poul Anderson bibliography

    Besides fellow humans he worked closely with sapient machines, and some of them got to be friends too, of an eerie kind.

  • 2012 C. Willrich Star Soup in Asimov’s Science Fiction Sept. 37 page image Chris Willrich bibliography

    I do not worry…. Worry is for sapient beings, and I am not sapient. You are projecting your own nature on to me…. I am a machine.

Research requirements

antedating 1935
Earliest cite

Bob Olsen, in Amazing Stories
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 2003 cite from Larry Niven's "The Ones Who Stay Home".
Michael Dolbear submitted a 1998 cite from David Weber's "More Than Honor".
Michael Dolbear submitted a cite from a 1989 reprint of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Paul Edwin Zimmer's "The Survivors"; we would like to check the 1979 first edition.
Douglas Winston submitted a 1983 cite from David Brin's "Startide Rising"; Mike Christie verified that the cite does not appear in the 1981 magazine version.
Douglas Winston submitted a 1992 cite from Allen Steele's "Labyrinth of Night".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 2000 reprint of Alan Dean Foster's 1999 "Phylogenesis".
Douglas Winston submitted a 2000 cite from Poul Anderson's "Genesis".
Ralf Brown located and Mike Christie submitted a 1968 cite from Robert Silverberg's "The Man in the Maze".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 1976 reprint of Larry Niven's 1970 "Ringworld".
Malcolm Farmer submitted a 1962 cite from H. Beam Piper's "Naudsonce".
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1935 cite from Bob Olsen in Amazing Stories.
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1953 cite from Theodore Cogswell in Galaxy.

Last modified 2021-01-24 14:09:00
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.