spaceway n.

an established route through space; usu. in pl. spaceways space as an area in which people travel; cf. planet v.

SF Encyclopedia


  • 1933 C. L. Moore Shambleau in Weird Tales Nov. 539/2 page image C. L. Moore bibliography

    He heard the gossip of the spaceways, news from a dozen planets of a thousand different events; he heard the latest joke about the Venusian Emperor and the latest report on the Chino-Aryan war and the latest song hot from the lips of Rose Robertson, whom every man on the civilized planets adored as ‘the Georgia Rose’.

  • 1938 A. K. Barnes Satellite Five in Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct. 16/1

    For this was Gerry Carlyle, most famous Earth-woman in the System, admired and beloved by millions for her exploits along the spaceways.

  • 1940 ‘G. A. Giles’ in Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec. 122/2

    Out in the Solar System, the Mercurians, first intelligent race, built an empire, only a memory now in the minds of 128 survivors. The Martians rose next, building their strange pyramids on the planets. They are gone, and now man goes forth to conquer the space-ways.

  • 1949 ‘M. Leinster’ Last Spaceship i. iii. 18 page image Murray Leinster

    It was a hundred years before the last of the run-away derelicts…was picked up by other space-ships which then still roved the space-ways.

  • 1956 C. D. Simak So Bright the Vision Fantastic Universe Aug. 21/1 page image Clifford D. Simak

    We got to keep them drooling over what is going to happen next to sloe-eyed Annie, queen of the far-flung space[-]ways.

  • 1980 Famous Monsters of Filmland Apr. 56 (advt.) page image

    C3PO & R2D2 BELT BUCKLE The dynamic duo of the space ways.

  • 2001 B. Broady In this Block there Lives Slag 155

    This is our final night. In a few hours we'll be heading home across the spaceways. When we travel to Saturn we don’t go round the sun, we just go straight through it.

Research requirements

antedating 1933
Earliest cite

C. L. Moore 'Shambleau'
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1941 cite from Robert Heinlein's "Universe".
Cory Panshin submitted a cite from a 1975 reprint of C. L. Moore's 1934 "Black Thirst".
Daniel Frankham submitted a cite from a 1982 reprint of C.L. Moore's "Shambleau" which Alistair Durie verified in its original 1933 publication in Weird Tales.
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1940 cite from Gordon Giles' "The Story Behind the Story" in Thrilling Wonder.
Mike Christie submitted a 1938 cite from Arthur K. Barnes' "Satellite Five".

Earliest cite in the OED: 1947.

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.