sapient adj.
of an alien or machine: intelligent; having human-like intelligence
Robotics
Aliens
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1935
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Bob Olsen
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When EXPLORATION blazed through space…And found men, sapient, on Mars, He gained renown’s most honored place.
Who Deserves Credit? in Amazing Stories Feb. 81 -
1953
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Theodore R. Cogswell
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‘I ain’t paid to get lectured by cockroaches.’ ‘Is, one, inaccurate statement—terrestrial cockroach is not sapient being. Is, two obviously hostile manifestation.’
Minimum Sentence in Galaxy Science Fiction 122/2 -
1962
H. Beam Piper
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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.
Naudsonce in Analog Science Fact—Science Fiction Jan. 9/1 -
1968
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Robert Silverberg
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Because the dragon wore protective clothing, and so was sapient? Sapient corpses were deliberately allowed to remain, Muller realized.
The Man in the Maze in Worlds of If Apr. 15/2 -
1970
Larry Niven
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Speaker, no sapient being ever interrupts a defense mechanism.
Ringworld (1976) 73 -
1979
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Paul Edwin Zimmer
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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.
Survivors (1989) 7 -
1982
Sonni Cooper
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The cataclysmic events should have destroyed all sapient life on the planet.
Black Fire ix.178 -
1986
J. M. Dillard
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Vulcans dreamed, of course—most sapient creatures do.
Demons i. 30 -
2000
Poul Anderson
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Besides fellow humans he worked closely with sapient machines, and some of them got to be friends too, of an eerie kind.
Genesis 161 -
2012
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Chris Willrich
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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.
Star Soup in Asimov’s Science Fiction Sept. 37
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.