triffid n.

in John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids: one of a race of malevolent alien plants which threaten to overrun the world

Frequently in fig. or allusive use.

SF Encyclopedia


Aliens

  • 1951 ‘J. Wyndham’ Day of Triffids ii. 46 John Wyndham bibliography

    A catchy little name originating in some newspaper office as a handy label for an oddity—but destined one day to be associated with pain, fear and misery—triffid.

  • 1951 ‘J. Wyndham’ Day of Triffids ii. 54 John Wyndham bibliography

    He had also established that the infertility rate of triffid seeds was something like ninety-five per cent.

  • 1965 New Scientist 11 Mar. 619/3

    Ninety per cent of British households have television…and neither bindweed, triffids, nor dragon’s teeth grew more rapidly than the angular aerial.

  • 1996 Wire June 63/3

    But it’s also oddly inhuman and insentient. If triffids could make music, it would sound something like Evening Light.

  • 2011 K. A. Murphy Straight Man in Fort Freak 343 page image Kevin Andrew Murphy bibliography

    The crunchberry triffid joker fainted either from terror or ichor-loss or some combination thereof.

Research requirements

any evidence 1951
Research History
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2011 cite from Kevin Andrew Murphy.

Last modified 2021-03-09 02:42:09
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.