insectoid n.

an insect-like alien

Aliens

  • 1937 L. P. Hartley in The Sketch 7 July 44/1

    In the ‘Other Earth’, the first world the narrator visits outside our own, he finds prevailing many of the conditions which agitate Europe to-day; in later stages of his quest, among the ‘insectoids’, for instance, he finds these difficulties resolved.

  • 1953 O. Stapledon Star Maker in To End of Time 340 Olaf Stapledon bibliography

    Of the populations of the sub-galaxy most were descendants of the original Ichthyoids or Arachnoids; but…not a few that had sprung from avians, insectoids or plant-men.

  • 1957 P. Anderson Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 55/2 Poul Anderson bibliography

    Or consider one of the small insectoids I studied. It breeds here in the usual manner, then the female crawls out into the light to lay her eggs.

  • 1972 A. D. Foster Tar-Aiym Krang (1983) 12 Alan Dean Foster bibliography

    From a counter of her variegated display booth, Mother Mastiff was pleading amiably with a pair of small, jeweled thranx touristas. Her technique was admirable and competent. It ought to be, he reflected. She'd had plenty of time in which to perfect it. He was only mildly surprised at the insectoid’s presence. Where humans go, thranx also, and vicey-versy, don’t you know?

  • 1973 L. Carter Black Legion of Callisto 198 Lin Carter bibliography

    CAPOK: an impolite colloquialism by which the baser elements of the various human races of Thanator refer, derogatorily, to the Yathoon insectoids; cognate to ‘bug’.

  • 1981 V. McIntyre Straining Your Eyes Through Viewscreen Blues in F. Herbert Nebula Winners Fifteen 80 Vonda N. McIntyre bibliography

    This is a slightly less blatant version of the game of space opera, in which one writes a western, then trades earth for Omega Orion XI, trades the six-guns for lasers, masers, rasers, phasers, or occasionally for broadswords and crossbows (in a high-tech civilization, mind you); the horses transmute to FTL starcruisers, the cleancut collegiate-type good guys in white hats turn into cleancut collegiate-type good guys in mylar jumpsuits, and the squinty-eyed bad guys in black hats turn into clones, giant ambulatory carrots, humanoids, virusoids, or insectoids (or vice-versa, depending on one’s level of xenophobia).

  • 1983 P. Anderson & G. R. Dickson Napoleon Crime in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Mar. 49/2 Poul Anderson Gordon R. Dickson bibliography

    A creature the size of his thumb fluttered clumsily, ever closer to him. Multiple legs brushed his skin again. ‘Damn,’ he mumbled, and once more made futile swatting motions. The insectoid was as persistent as a terrestrial fly.

  • 1996 D. Brin Infinity’s Shore (1997) 242 David Brin bibliography

    One by one, the insectoids drifted upslope to the makeshift cavity where Dwer and Rety exposed their faces for air.

  • 1998 J. Meaney To Hold Infinity i. 18 John Meaney bibliography

    He pictured wriggling insectoids, dropping from the night-bound branches.

  • 2015 C. Grabenstein & J. Patterson Daniel X: Lights Out i. 5 page image James Patterson Chris Grabenstein bibliography

    I was out there racking my alien brain, trying to formulate some sort of plan to take down Number 1—a plan that didn’t include me dying. The way my parents did when they went up against the six-and-a-half-foot-tall insectoid with the bulging, plum-colored body and stringy red dreadlocks dangling down between his antennae.


Research requirements

antedating 1937

Earliest cite

L. P. Hartley, reviewing Olaf Stapledon's "Star Maker"

Research History
Enoch Forrester submitted a cite from a 1983 reprint of Alan Dean Foster's "The Tar-Aiym Krang".
Douglas Winston submitted a 1977 cite from Alan Dean Foster's "The End of the Matter".
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1981 cite from Vonda McIntyre's "The Straining Your Eyes Through The Viewscreen Blues".
Jeff Prucher submitted a cite from a 2000 reprint of Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson's "The Napoleon Crime", which Mike Christie verified in the 1983 first publication.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1957 cite from Poul Anderson's "Life Cycle"
Fred Galvin submitted a 1987 cite from Thomas R. McDonough's "The Architects of Hyperspace"
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1973 reprint of Lin Carter's 1972 "Black Legion of Callisto".
Simon Koppel submitted a 1937 cite from a review (by the novelist L. P. Hartley) of Olaf Stapledon's "Star Marker" (see below).

The OED database has an example from a later printing of Olaf Stapledon's "Star Maker". We would like to check this in the 1937 first edition.

Last modified 2021-08-16 15:55:17
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.