plastiskin n.

synthetic skin

Typically described as used for either the exterior covering of an android, or as a material used for medical purposes.

  • 1949 ‘R. P. Graham’ Unforeseen in Fantastic Adventures Jan. 140/2 page image Rog Phillips bibliography

    Horace skillfully glued the plastiskin back over the braincase of his first robot creation.

  • 1951 D. Knight World without Children in Galaxy Science Fiction Dec. 37/2 page image Damon Knight bibliography

    He kept compulsively scratching the area and it seemed to have set up some kind of local irritation. He had a plastiskin bandage over it now.

  • 1954 ‘A. Norton’ The Stars Are Ours! 133 page image Andre Norton bibliography

    Dard…had his bite sterilized and bandaged with plasta[-]skin.

  • 1969 R. C. Meredith We All Died at Breakaway Station in Amazing Stories Mar. 51/1 page image Richard C. Meredith bibliography

    Hansey’s open hand, metal clad in plastiskin, came up suddenly, striking Spiers’s cheek.

  • 1972 J. Green Dwarfs of Zwergwelt in Worlds of If June 55/2 page image Joseph Green bibliography

    When the bleeding stopped he covered the torn areas with plastiskin bandages.

  • 1979 ‘F. Longbeard’ Time for Terror in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine page image Barry B. Longyear bibliography

    While she cleaned my wound and covered it with plastiskin, the doctor had remained silent.

  • 1996 D. van Hise Rust from His Heart in Tomorrow Speculative Fiction (#20) Apr. 69/3 page image Della Van Hise bibliography

    Drycreek waved her frantic questions aside, then began closing up the robot’s plastiskin chest.

  • 2005 R. J. Sawyer Mindscan xi. 83 Robert J. Sawyer bibliography

    I’d never known Clamhead to bite anyone, but she bit me. I was wearing a short-sleeve shirt; she closed her jaws on my naked forearm and yanked backward, tearing out a ragged piece of plastiskin, revealing fiber-optic nerves, bungee-cord muscles, and a blue metal armature within.

  • 2012 D. Brin Existence 491 page image David Brin bibliography

    Gavin’s supple, plastiskin face was somber, his voice subdued.

Research requirements

antedating 1949
Earliest cite

Rog Phillips, "Unforeseen", in Fantastic Adventures
Research History
Suggested by David Starner, who has a 1990 cite from the GURPs cyberpunk Manual.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1985 reprint of Andre Norton's 1955 "The Last Planet" for the form "plasta-skin".

Last modified 2022-09-22 14:28:02
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.