worldlet n.
a small celestial object; a planetoid
-
1841
As a last round of this giddy climax, after noisy clashing Chaos there shall roll out, ‘perfect, smooth, and round’, green young Worldlets, moving in quiet harmony, and moulded with systematic skill.
Author's Mind 26 -
1926 Spectator 11 Sept. 375/1
So in turn we visit the asteroids, that belt of tiny worldlets flinging round the sun.
-
1937
Olaf Stapledon
As the aeons advanced, hundreds of thousands of worldlets were constructed, all of this type, but gradually increasing in size and complexity. Many a star without natural planets came to be surrounded by concentric rings of artificial worlds.
Star Maker (1987) 156
-
1973
Arthur C. Clarke
Bernal and others thought this could be done with mobile worldlets a few kilometres across, carrying thousands of passengers on journeys that would last for generations.
Rendezvous with Rama (1974) 43
-
1985
David Brin
Asteroid-sized arks—artificial worldlets capable of carrying entire ecospheres—remained a dream out of science fiction, economically beyond reach.
Warm Space in D. Brin Otherness (1994) 266
-
1989 Asimov’s Science Fiction Dec. 175/1
In Eon, an artificial worldlet called the Thistledown, which somehow arrives from the future, contains the machinery for generating ‘The Way’, a kind of tubular wormhole universe, fifty kilometers in diameter and more or less infinitely long, snaking, not only through space and time, but alternate universes too.
-
1990
Allen Steele
Blind Boy Grunt had been haunting Clarke County’s information system for the past year, beginning a few months after the colony began operating as an inhabitated [sic] worldlet.
Clarke County, Space 86—7
-
1993
Arthur C. Clarke
Not much larger than a family automobile, it could provide basic life-support for pilot and three passengers for up to a week, allow them to make a fairly detailed examination of the virgin worldlet, and bring back a few hundred kilograms of well-documented samples.
Hammer of God 108
-
1993
Poul Anderson
bibliography
The worldlet was little more than a darkness, faintly a-sheen where a crest jutted out of shadow, a piece torn from the sky that otherwise encompassed her.
Harvest of Stars (1994) 56
-
1994
page image
Paul J. McAuley
bibliography
Jay discovers that the device may contain the location of the long-lost Godspeed base, hidden somewhere in the swarm of worldlets where the spacers mine asteroids for precious light metals.
A Comedy of Terrors in Interzone (#79) Jan. 63/3 (review of Charles Sheffield’s Godspeed)
-
1998
Julia Ecklar
Karen Rose Cercone
bibliography
Our stop, just outside the heavy metal gates of the Anjiri’s manufactured worldlet.
War Dragons xii. 170
-
1999
George Zebrowski
Charles Pellegrino
bibliography
The worldlet wobbled and cracked… After more than two hours, it was still flinging sparks and hot coals from the wound.
Star Trek Next Generation: Dyson Sphere ix. 145
-
2004
Peter F. Hamilton
The little artificial worldlet was self-sufficient, and self-maintaining thanks to the very large array which ran it.
Pandora's Star viii. 199
-
2005
Charles Stross
bibliography
The grass is cool beneath her feet, and a gentle breeze blows constantly out toward the recirculators at the edge of the worldlet.
Accelerando 303
Research requirements
antedating 1841
Last modified 2021-01-12 00:34:13
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.