Full record for uplift v.

Definition to engineer a species (usually genetically) to make them intelligent
OED requirements antedating 1980
Earliest cite D. Brin 'Sundiver'
Comment Matthew Hoyt submitted a cite from a reprint of David Brin's "Sundiver"; Rick Hauptmann verified this cite in the 1980 first edition. We suspect this is the first cite and would like citations from other authors after this date, as well as any earlier cites from Brin.

Steve Jackson submitted a 2001 cite from Robert Metzger in the SFWA Bulletin. Malcolm Farmer submitted a 2000 cite from Greg Bear's "Deep Ice and DNA Languages". Douglas Winston submitted a 2001 cite from James Alan Gardner's "Ascending". Malcolm Farmer submitted a cite from a 2003 reprint of Ken MacLeod's 2002 "Engine City". Jeff Prucher submitted cites from Dave Freer and Eric Flint's 2000 "Rats, Bats & Vats". Malcolm Farmer submitted a cite from a 2004 reprint of Charles Stross's 2003 "Singularity Sky"

Last modified 6 July, 2008

Citations for uplift v.

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1989 Nova Express Spring 12/1 I eat chicken and fish, not only because its [sic] more ecologically sound, but because there's no chance that they might be Uplifted.
1997 J. A. Gardner Expendable (1997) xiv. 226 That's an AI for you: probably trying to ‘uplift’ me by setting an example of ‘correct’ speech.
2001 J. A. Gardner Ascending xix. 235 Nimbus spoke of diverse alien races—Earthlings and Divians and Cashlings and several other species whose names did not stick in my mind—but they all had two qualities in common. First, they had been ‘uplifted’ by the Shaddill: approached in their native star systems, given new homes elsewhere in the galaxy, and presented with sophisticated Science Gifts as a welcome to the League of Peoples. Second, ever since their uplift, these species had all grown more decadent, temperamental, and culturally sterile‥particularly those uplifted for the longest period.
2004 C. Stross Singularity Sky 370 They milled about downslope, debating the ideological necessity of uplifting non-human species to sapience—one of them had taken heated exception to a proposal to giving opposable thumbs and the power of speech to cats—and comparing their increasingly baroque implants.