jaunt v.

esp. in reference to teleportation by psychic rather than technological means: = teleport v. 1; = teleport v. 2

Chiefly associated with Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, where the term is used in many forms and compounds (and spelled jaunte in uninflected forms) to refer to teleportation by mental effort alone, and is named for the scientist Charles Fort Jaunte, who discovered the phenomenon (with Jaunte’s name itself in homage to Charles Fort).

  • 1956 A. Bester Stars My Destination in Galaxy Oct. 13/2 Alfred Bester bibliography

    Space set a final limitation, for no man had ever jaunted farther than a thousand miles. [Ibid. 29/2] Then they all jaunted to the school and back to Times Square.

  • 1972 D. R. Koontz Cosmic Sin in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Feb. 72/1 page image Dean R. Koontz bibliography

    The air shimmered, seemed to bend, and there he was—a tall dude with a lot of black hair…. ‘I jaunted us here.’

  • 1973 B. Finch & R. Price Slaves of Jedikiah (episode 1) (The Tomorrow People episode) (ITV) 30 Apr. (transcription)

    If he breaks out in his sleep he might jaunt unconsciously into somewhere dangerous. [Ibid.] Is your fix accurate enough to jaunt her direct to his bedside?

  • 1981 S. King The Jaunt in Twilight Zone Magazine June 22/1 page image Stephen King bibliography

    Carew only Jaunted once more in his entire life. [Ibid. 23/1] It’s the first object we have that was actually teleported—Jaunted—across space.

  • 1993 H. Ellison Mefisto in Onyx in Omni Oct. 134/3 page image Harlan Ellison bibliography

    I didn’t really know how I jaunted. I just…did it. One moment I was snug in the privacy of my own head, and the next I was over there in someone else’s landscape. It was instantaneous, like teleportation.

  • 1993 A. Steele Lost in the Shopping Mall in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Oct.–Nov. 81 page image Allen Steele bibliography

    Bass opened his briefcase and prepared to make the jaunt…. Then he jaunted into the Gallerie Virtual.

  • 2001 F. G. MacIntyre Schrödinger’s Cat-Sitter in Analog Science Fiction & Fact July–Aug. 158/1 F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre bibliography

    ‘I’ll have to go out and buy some cat food,’ said Smedley. ‘But this is Zurich in 1926, and I don’t have any Swiss money. Not even a groschen to buy groscheries. Not even a pfennig. Pfooey! Wait a minute: there’s no reason I need to go shopping locally...’ So saying, Smedley unfolded his wormhole and jaunted forth among the infinite tangents of space-time in search of someplace that sold cat food. The thirty-ninth century A.D. was especially noted for its excellent cat food, but when Smedley got there and tried to buy some he discovered that he’d used up all his credit in that particular century.

  • 2016 C. Stross Empire Games 160 Charles Stross bibliography

    ‘What should happen is that you’ll jaunt over there; then we’ll use the transporter to come over and confirm you’re healthy before you make the return jaunt.’ ‘Jaunt? You’re using that word—’ The Colonel shrugged. ‘We lifted it from an old SF novel. It’s short and descriptive and differentiates what you’ll be doing—jaunting—from what the transporters do—para-time traversal.’


Research requirements

antedating 1956

Research History
"Tiger! Tiger!", the British first edition of "The Stars My Destination", appeared in June 1956, several months before the Galaxy serialization; we would like to cite from this printing.

Last modified 2023-02-16 12:53:20
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.