spacefaring adj.
that travels, or is able to travel, in space; that is used during or pertains to space travel
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1942 Suicide Ship to Earth in Amazing Stories Feb. 181/2
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David Wright O'Brien
If it weren’t for his childish desire to play spacefaring financier, he'd never have put a kleka in with us.
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1942 Creegar Dares to Die in Fantastic Adventures Aug. 117/1
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David Wright O'Brien
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The seedy litle [sic] man in spacefaring garb of soiled raggedness nudged him.
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1952 Frontier of Dark in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 133/1
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A. Bertram Chandler
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She’s a better ship than any of the spacefaring boudoirs that are turned out by your yards!
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1953 Strange Compulsion in Science Fiction Plus Oct. 60/1
Philip José Farmer
Once the quarantine had been clamped down and all the space-faring Remohs located and examined, Gaulers went to work.
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1957 in Astounding Science Fiction Nov. 90/2
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Robert A. Heinlein
The Finstera are not a spacefaring people; there was no possibility that the bogie would be identified as theirs.
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1970 Time Piece in Worlds of If July–Aug. 46/1
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Joe Haldeman
Strange for a spacefaring, aggressive race to be so uncurious about planetary environments.
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1979 Fountains of Paradise 80
Arthur C. Clarke
During the millennia since they had launched Starglider, their spacefaring ability must have improved enormously.
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1981 Pride of Chanur (1991) iv. 61
C. J. Cherryh
A communicative, spacefaring species, hitherto unknown, in a position to have come into kif hands without passing through more civilized regions.
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1991 Xenocide viii. 109
Orson Scott Card
Had she thought he would stride off the shuttle as strong and bold as a spacefaring god from some romance?
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1998 The Mars Convention in Interzone (#135) Sept. 15/1
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Timons Esaias
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He did not dislike the other spacefaring species; he found them interesting.
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2005 Algebraist v. 368
Iain M. Banks
Because if all this was real then he was, maybe, on the brink of the most astounding discovery in all human history, a revelation that could do untold harm or bring inestimable benefits to any combination of the Mercatoria, its adversaries and just about every other space-faring species in the galaxy.
Research requirements
antedating 1942
Earliest cite
David Wright O'Brien
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a cite from a 1978 reprint of Robert Heinlein's "Citizen of the Galaxy".James A. Landau verified the cite in the 1957 first edition.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a reprint of Philip Jose Farmer's "Strange Compulsion"; Rick Hauptmann verified the cite in the 1953 first magazine appearance.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1952 cite from A. Bertram Chandler's "Frontier of the Dark."
Jesse Sheidlower submitted 1942 cites from David Wright O'Brien.
Earliest cite in the OED: 1962.
Last modified 2021-09-13 01:01:27
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entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.