Jovian n. 1
a native or inhabitant of the planet Jupiter
Demonyms
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1757 History of Israel Jobson 42
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Miles Wilson
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At the same Time I pray’d him to do me the Pleasure to give me a short Relation upon what Condition these Jovians exist with respect to their Creator.
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1869 Dundee Courier & Argus 2 Sept. 3/3
His notion is to mount a great mirror upon the earth, and give flashing signals to Mars and Jupiter. He thinks that if these are repeated regularly, in batches of a certain number, the Martians or the Jovians, as the case may be, will come to discern that they mean something, and will return them; and that thus a code will be eventually agreed upon, so that we may talk across the solar system just as we do across a field.
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1871 Science & Revelation 155
Now, let us suppose ourselves philosophers come, we will say, from the planet Jupiter, on a mission intrusted to us by the Jovians, to examine and report upon the nature of the creatures which people the four inferior planets, Terra, Venus, Mercury, and Mars.
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1876 tr. J. Verne All Around the Moon xv. 264
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If the Jovians and the rest have been able to quit their planets, they have probably succeeded in discovering the invisible sides of their satellites.
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1891 N.-Y. Times May 17 1/5
In other words, it is a full description of the Jovians.
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1932 Space Rays in Wonder Stories Dec. 586/1
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John W. Campbell, Jr.
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Barclay was a type of man seen rather rarely on the minor planets. He was a Jovian.
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1948 Design for Doomsday in Planet Stories Spring 112/1
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Bryce Walton
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No Jovian had ever visited another world in the System, and vice versa. They were neutrals with a strict mutual code of hands off with all other planets.
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1956 Double Star (1957) 127
Robert A. Heinlein
I was knocked out the first time when we finally put the eetees—Venerians and Martians and Outer Jovians—into the Grand Assembly. But the nonhuman peoples are still there and I came back.
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1980 Asimov’s Science Fiction July 73
The robots are taken by the Jovians to be humans, and prove so superior to the Jovians that the Jovian superiority complex crumbles.
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2003 On Books: Content, Consciousness, Style in Asimov’s Science Fiction July 133/2
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Norman Spinrad
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The thematic essence of ‘Call Me Joe’ is the stepwise transformation of the protagonist’s consciousness from that of a human inside the body of a Jovian to that of a human become a Jovian on a psychological, moral, and even spiritual level.
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2020 Mars, Dumping Ground of Solar System in Analog Science Fiction & Fact July–Aug. 101/2
Andrew Kozma
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‘You can’t be serious about helping the Jovians sue us.’…‘The Jovians are sick and getting sicker.’
Research requirements
antedating 1757
Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a cite that is from 1891 or earlier, from a reprint of Richard Proctor's "Other Worlds Than Ours"; however, the 1874 edition was checked and does not contain "Jovian".Roberto Labanti submitted a cite from a news item "Wiggins as a Novelist" in the New York Times, May 7 1891.
Roberto Labanti submitted a cite from the published text of a lecture "Science and Revelation" by R. Payne Smith. (This was an American reprint of the 1871 english edition: we would be interested in verifying cites from the original publication, "Science and Scepticism: A Course of lectures delivered at the request of the Christian Evidence Society...", ed. The Christian Evidence Society, Hodder & Stoughton, 1871).
Garson O'Toole submitted the 1869 cite.
Bee Ostrowsky submitted a 2003 cite from Norman Spinrad.
Clive Shergold submitted an 1876 cite from Edward Roth's translation of Jules Verne's All Around the Moon.
Clive Shergold submitted a 1757 cite from Miles Wilson's "History of Israel Jobson".
Last modified 2025-12-03 13:01:19
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.