hovercar n.
a car that hovers above the ground, typically conceived as using antigravity technology
Vehicles
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1958 Sunday Dispatch (London) 16 Mar. 10/4
[headline] Hover-cars[…] An American car designer has predicted that cars will fly by 1978. Mr Carl Reynolds says that future cars will be wheelless, and move 2ft. or so above the surface.
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1959 Salisbury Times 30 July 9/4 (caption)
Hovercar, shown in artist’s conception, is one possible development of revolutionary lift and propulsion principle.
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1959 Progress 17 Sept. 2/4
An air-borne vehicle called the “Hovercar” is being produced commercially by Saunders-Roe Ltd., British aircraft manufacturer.
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1986
Lewis Shiner
Bruce Sterling
bibliography
Rice’s hovercar huffed along at a steady 80 mph.
Mozart in Mirrorshades in B. Sterling Mirrorshades (1986) 233
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1986
Diane Carey
Beyond them were two private hover-cars.
Battlestations! iii.35
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1999
Michael Jan Friedman
bibliography
High overhead, a hovercar skimmed the tops of the buildings, twisting in the bright sunlight.
My Brother's Keeper . ii. 31
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2019
Yoon Ha Lee
bibliography
My scooter was long gone. Seok rented us a hover-car. I was disappointed but not exactly surprised that he wouldn’t let me drive it, considering all the illegal things I’d already gotten away with.
Dragon Pearl xxxviii. 308
Research requirements
antedating 1958
Research History
Roberto Labanti submitted cites from two newspaper reports: a July 30 1959 cite from "The Salisbury Times" [Salisbury, MD], and a September 17, 1959 cite from "The Progress" [PA].Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2019 cite from Yoon Ha Lee.
Simon Koppel submitted a 1958 cite from a newspaper.
Earliest cite in the OED database: 1961
Last modified 2022-05-08 18:44:40
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entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.