replicant n. 1

an artificial being in the form of a human or other creature; an android

Introduced in, and chiefly associated with, the 1982 film Blade Runner. The 1968 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, on which the film is based, uses the term android (or andy).

SF Encyclopedia


Robotics

  • 1980 H. Fancher & D. Peoples Blade Runner (film script) 22 Dec. (scene 30)

    The big religious boys said that replicants, no matter how human, were objects, only God could make people.

  • 1983 Starburst (#62) Oct. 16/2 page image

    The Captain of a supply ship…takes pity on the lonely man and on one of his trips leaves him a perfect replica robot woman….Corry is, at first, repulsed by the replicant but ultimately comes to love her.

  • 1991 Locus May 66/3

    He got into this crazy stuff about…replicants.

  • 2000 N. Lowe Mutant Popcorn in Interzone (#161) Nov. 42/1 page image Nick Lowe bibliography

    Like replicants for androids, the deathkiss word ‘superhero’ is avoided altogether for the techy euphemism ‘mutant,’ even though the one thing that all the homines superiores seem to have in common is really dumb comiesy superpowers that could only have been invented by a Marvel bullpensman on a bad caffeine high: controlling weather, doing ice sculptures, projecting something called ‘optic blasts’ (which have given generations of writers migraines of their own trying to rationalize).

  • 2004 K. Maio Films in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 116/1 page image Kathi Maio bibliography

    The hero of the movie, a defense research scientist named Spencer Olham…is accused of not being who he believes himself to be by a ruthless security agent, Major Hathaway…. Hathaway claims that Olham is actually a replicant smart bomb.

  • 2004 N. Kress My Mother, Dancing in Asimov’s Science Fiction June 14 page image Nancy Kress bibliography

    ‘We have one new replicant with us on the ship.’ ‘Welcome new replicant!’ we say, and there is more rejoicing.

  • 2012 S. Hawksmoor The Hunting 57 page image Sam Hawksmoor bibliography

    As far as Strindberg was concerned they weren’t even human. These were just replicants. And like all lab rats, their feelings were not a matter for his concern.


Research requirements

antedating 1980

Earliest cite

in Blade Runner script

Last modified 2022-02-10 18:19:06
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.