bionic adj.
of or pertaining to bionics; having or being an artificial, esp. electromechanical, device that replaces part of the body; having ordinary human capabilities increased (as if) by the aid of such devices
Science
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1941
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‘Operate? Plastic-surgery?’ The doctor looked puzzled. ‘We use bionic methods.’
Vassals of the Master World in Planet Stories Fall 22/2 -
1961 Science Digest Nov. 26/2
The bionic machines and synthetically intelligent systems of tomorrow.
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1973
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Sonya Dorman
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His brain is now tremendously amplified by the link to the computer. So far, he’s the only human survivor of the applications of our research. We lost the other two to brain damage during the bionic installation phase.
Bear Went Over the Mountain in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Aug. 143/1 -
1988
Neal Stephenson
I threw myself on the mercy of Esmerelda, a black librarian of somewhere between ninety and a hundred who contained within her bionic hairdo all knowledge, or the ability to find it.
Zodiac . 11 -
1998
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The fingertips of her natural right hand almost but not quite aligned with the crude bionic structure that served as her left hand.
Spectre Prologue 3 -
2014
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Sarah Pinsker
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‘Brain-Computer Interface,’ his mother said, as if that explained everything. She used the same voice she had used when he was five to tell him where the cattle went when they were loaded onto trucks.[...] The lines in her forehead and the set of her jaw told Andy she was concerned, even if her words hid it. ‘They put electrodes and a chip in your motor cortex,’ she continued. ‘You’re bionic.’
A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide in Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea (2019) 1 -
2015
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Steve White
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The Human Integrity Act’s prohibition of bionic replacement limbs and organs had been one of its most controversial provisions, for they were one of the more defensible forms of man-machine interfacing.
Soldiers Out of Time xiii. 96
Research requirements
antedating 1941
Earliest cite
"Eando Binder," in Planet Stories
Research History
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2015 cite from Steve White.Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2014 cite from Sarah Pinsker.
Earliest quotation in OED2 was 1963; improved to 1961 in OED3.
Last modified 2022-01-29 15:23:52
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.