spacer n. 2

= spaceship n.

Vehicles

  • 1939 G. Arnold Silent World in Science Fiction Aug. 111/2 page image Guy Arnold bibliography

    The four-hour night ended before Big Jeff Sanderson deposited his burden upon a swinging couch in the big front compartment of his spacer.

  • 1941 ‘S. D. Gottesman’ Dead Center in Stirring Science Stories Feb. iv. 20/1 page image C. M. Kornbluth bibliography

    About them rose the gigantic ribs of the super-spacer that Angel Maclure had undertaken to build.

  • 1942 C. Cartmill Some Day We’ll Find You in Astounding Science-Fiction Dec. 41/1 page image Cleve Cartmill bibliography

    Why do you think Martians are barred from approaching spacers nearer than five hundred yards? You know they can copy anything once they nose around with their mind tendrils. Let one Martian into the control room of a spacer, and Trading Post’s monopoly is broken.

  • 1946 G. O. Smith Pattern for Conquest in Astounding Science-Fiction Apr. 55/2 page image George O. Smith bibliography

    The sky was dark with their light spacers, landing, and the air was roiled mechanically with the landing craft that dropped from the spacecraft in never ending streams.

  • 1951 F. Brown Something Green in S. Moskowitz Exploring Other Worlds (1969) 138 Fredric Brown bibliography

    Only one spacer had landed here before McGarry’s, as far as the records showed, and it had never taken off again. He was looking for it now; he'd been looking for it systematically for the five years he'd been here. If he found it, it might—just barely might—contain, intact, some of the electronic tubes which had been smashed in the crash landing of his own spacer.

  • 1957 P. J. Farmer Green Odyssey (1976) 154 Philip José Farmer bibliography

    I would like to know if you can pilot that spacer and if it’s in operating condition.

  • 1961 R. G. Brown Of All Possible Worlds in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Feb. 47/2 page image Rosel George Brown bibliography

    [W]hen I saw the one-man spacers they were so perfect a symbol that I had a irresistible impulse to get in one. If anyone asks me why I travel about the galaxy, I say it is because I am an anthropologist and explorer.

  • 1972 H. Harrison Stainless Steel Rat’s Return in Worlds of If Apr. 92/1 page image Harry Harrison bibliography

    How about crashlanding one of your spacers inside the castle up there and getting a fighting force behind their backs that way?

  • 2006 Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest Summer 32

    The earliest scans were on the spacer Chickmanga bound for a station in Jupiter orbit.

Research requirements

antedating 1939
Earliest cite

Guy Arnold, in Science Fiction
Research History
Imran Ghory submitted a cite from a 1976 reprint of Philip Jose Farmer's "The Green Odyssey"; Rick Hauptmann verified the cite in the 1957 first edition.
Enoch Forrester submitted a cite from a 1997 reprint of C. M. Kornbluth's "Crisis!"; we would like to check the 1942 first magazine appearance.
Malcolm Farmer submitted a cite from a 1969 reprint of Fredric Brown's 1951 "Something Green".
Mike Christie submitted a 1947 cite from a letter by John Woods in Astounding.
Mike Christie submitted a 1946 cite from George O. Smith's "Pattern For Conquest".
Mike Christie submitted a 1942 cite from Cleve Cartmill's "Some Day We'll Find You".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1997 reprint of C.M. Kornbluth's "Dead Center"; Mike Christie verified it in its first publication in Stirring Science Stories, February 1941, under the pseudonym 'S.D. Gottesman'.
Bill Mullins submitted a 1939 cite from Guy Arnold in Science Fiction.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 1961 cite from Rosel George Brown.

Earliest cite in OED2: 1962. Now updated to 1942 in OED3.

Last modified 2021-11-15 21:52:26
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.