to fire a ray at
Cf. the scientific sense ‘to treat with or examine by means of X-rays or other radiation’ (OED: 1898).
That air-blast is probably what saved us, as they destroyed our vessel with atomic bombs and hunted down the four men of our crew, who stayed comparatively close to the scene. They rayed you for about an hour with the most stupendous beams imaginable—no such generators have ever been considered possible of construction—but couldn't make any impression upon you. Then they shut off their power and stood by, waiting. [Ibid. 408/1] ‘Ray it for a time; he will probably open the shield for a moment, as the other one did,’ then, after a time skipped over by the mind under examination, ‘Cease raying—no use wasting power. He must open eventually, as he runs out of power. Stand by and destroy him when he opens.’
So the ships had been rayed apart, and when Arcot had left, their burning atmosphere had been evolving mighty tongues of flame shooting a mile into the air.
The people at the stations wouldn’t have let the shell go by. They’d have rayed anything that big.
Order the guns placed in readiness and aimed along the avenues. Any Human attempting to pass the cordon is to be rayed mercilessly.
We rayed the thing out of space as a menace to navigation.
However, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen a Zone Agent check in from the Emergency Treatment Chamber of his ship, completely inclosed in a block of semisolid protective gel, through which he was being molded, rayed, dosed, drenched, shocked, nourished and psychoed back to health and sanity.
I am sick of demands for Captain Future; having read most of them from sheer force of circumstances (during the shortage but of all the overgrown Captain Marvel characters that have rayed their way through the pages of the pulps CF took some beating.
I caught a second man reaching for Vondar. But the one already struggling with him I dared not ray, lest I get my master too.
Well, for starters, I’ll say you got hold of the stunner and rayed them both, then held the stunner on me and made me take you to the airport because you didn’t know its location.
He can try raying us…. He must have an industrial laser.
Move even an inch, and you get rayed.
antedating 1930
Doc Smith, "Skylark Three", in Amazing Stories
Last modified 2022-03-03 20:19:54
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.