Full record for earthling n.

Definition An inhabitant of the earth.
OED requirements antedating 1593
Earliest cite Thomas Nashe, 'Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem'
Comment Earliest cite in the OED is 1593.
Last modified 6 July, 2008

Citations for earthling n.

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1940 H. Bates Farewell To Master in Astounding Sci.-Fiction Oct. 59/1 Hinged robots of crude manlike appearance were familiar enough, but never had Earthling eyes lain on one like this.
1950 P. Anderson Star Ship in Planet Stories Oct. 74/1 There'd been Earthling girls; and not a few Khazaki women had been intrigued by the big Terrestrial.
1959 K. Vonnegut Sirens of Titan 133 Advance units of the Martian Imperial Commandos had already obliterated Earthling installations on the Earthling moon. The Commando rocket batteries, firing from the moon, were now giving every major city a taste of hell.
1968 S. E. Whitfield in S. E. Whitfield & G. Roddenberry Making of ‘Star Trek’ ii. v. 232 I suspect that the character's remote quality—a sort of loneliness because he is different from the rest of the Earthling crew—makes the kids react.
1980 B. Bova Moonstruck! in O. Davis Omni Bk. of Space 387 The November 1979 issue of Science reviewed the situation under the heading, EARTHLING AT ODDS OVER MOON TREATY.
1984 D. Brin Practice Effect vi.i. 99 Earthlings had had to struggle and experiment for thousands of years to reach a level of comfort these people achieved almost without thinking.
1985 R. Rucker & B. Sterling Storming Cosmos in B. Sterling Globalhead (1994) 18 The dog Laika has been shot into the cosmic void. A good dog, a Russian, an Earthling.
1985 R. Rucker & B. Sterling Storming Cosmos in B. Sterling Globalhead (1994) 26 This place was impossibly remote. Kazantsev suggested that the crash point had been chosen deliberately to avoid injuring Earthlings.
1985 S. Sucharitkul Alien Swordmaster ii. vi. 41 It was the aliens‥waiting, quietly waiting for the moment when the earthlings had exhausted their ammunition and they could slip back and reconquer the world.
1990 G. Bear Queen of Angels (1991) i.iv. 17 We might find mankind's future husbands and wives among the angels who‥once cohabited with Earthlings.
1992 H. Collins Mutagenesis 20 You and I will be collecting Anunna! We will have no interest in Earthlings like Barney and his daughters.
1993 Sci. Fiction Age Jan. 49/1 Boys and girls together. Standard 25th-century Earthlings.
1993 A. Budrys Hard Landing 100 Furthermore, I did not know if an un-Earthling had ever previously been encountered, but that did not mean much; you can trust any branch of the service above a certain level of rank to keep its secrets.
1993 D. Beason & K. J. Anderson Assemblers of Infinity xlvi. 350 Then we can be here to listen in‥influence them to be sympathetic to us poor Earthlings when the rest of the gang comes along.
1995 Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch Star Trek Voyager: Escape iv. 35 Like Earthlings, though, these people had different-color hair and a finer bone structure.
1997 2000 AD 28 Oct. (verso front cover), According to everything I see and read on this world, one word seems to prey on the minds of most Earthlings; sex. Certainly my editorial droids seem to spend a lot of time discussing the topic, hence this special sex-themed prog.
2006 S. M. Stirling Sky People i. 21 The newcomers spared a few startled glances at them: You had to look fairly closely to see that they weren't common garden-variety Caucasoid Earthlings.