time warp n.
an imaginary or hypothetical distortion of space-time by which people or objects at one point in time can be (instantly) moved to another, or within which time moves at a different speed
Time Travel
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[1930
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Arthur Leo Zagat
Nat Schachner
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Jenkins had evidently fallen into a warp in space. The Vanishing Wood was a pucker—a fault, we might say, borrowing a geologic term—in the curvature of space. Through this warp he had been thrown clear out of our three dimensions into a fourth dimension. There he slid in time over the other side of the ridge or pucker, into the same spot in the three-dimensional world, but into a different era in time. Notice that he had not traveled an inch in space; all his journeying had been purely in time.]
In 20,000 A.D.! in Wonder Stories Sept. 314/1 (footnote) -
1937
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Oliver Saari
bibliography
Cameron, of the twentieth century, was using the time warp to propel him ahead in time.
Time Bender in Astounding Stories Aug. 72/2
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1938
Robert Moore Williams
bibliography
‘That warp,’said Sarl slowly, ‘—was a time warp and not a space warp. You went along with the Sun as it moved, and when you came through again, the stars had shifted until you couldn’t recognize them. You thought you had been shifted in space.’
Flight of the Dawn Star in Astounding Science-Fiction Mar. 36/1
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1939
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Clifford D. Simak
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They will use a time warp… They will bud out from their universe, but in doing so they will distort the time factor in the walls of their hypersphere.
Cosmic Engineers in Astounding Science Fiction Apr. 134/2
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1951
Anthony Boucher
bibliography
The gadget stories were more interesting. They frequently made honest attempts at forecasting scientific developments. Atomic power, stratosphere exploration, the rocket flight that so absorbs Chantrelle, all the features that may revolutionize the second half of this century as thoroughly as radio and the airplane have transformed this half—all these became familiar, workable things. But the writers stopped there. Interest lay in the gadget itself. And science fiction was headed for a blind alley until the realization came that even science fiction must remain fiction, and fiction is basically about people, not subatomic blasters nor time warps.
Rocket to Morgue 54
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1966
Robert Sheckley
bibliography
‘I stepped into a time warp on the twelfth hole,’ Uncle Max said.
Mindswap 132
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1968
D. C. Fontana
A time warp landed us back here.
Tomorrow is Yesterday in J. Blish Star Trek 2 (1968) 31
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1985
Margaret Wander Bonanno
bibliography
Voting from deep space was a sometimes sticky procedure, complicated by time-warp distortions, differing residency laws from planet to planet, and the difficulty of sending secret ballots on hyperchannel.
Dwellers in Crucible i. 14
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1987
Norman Spinrad
bibliography
There was a warmth in those eyes, a wisdom, a spirit of adventure, God help him, a sexiness, that made him wish for a time warp, for certainly there was nothing he would have liked more than to embark upon this adventure with the hot young girl this old lady had so manifestly once been.
Little Heroes (1989) 169
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1988
Sharyn McCrumb
bibliography
He eased down into the empty floor space next to Marion, wondering if the room had fallen into a twenty-year time warp.
Bimbos of Death Sun vii. 86
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1995
Warp—time—warp—warp.
First Frontier . iii. 45
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2008
That’s right. The future. You sent me through a time warp.
Akiko & Missing Misp vi. 53
Research requirements
antedating 1937
Earliest cite
Oliver Saari, 'The Time Bender'
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1939 cite from Clifford Simak's "Cosmic Engineers".Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1980 reprint of Robert Moore Williams' "Flight of the Dawn Star", which Mike Christie verified in its 1938 first publication.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1937 cite from "The Time Bender" by Oliver Saari.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 1930 cite from Nat Schachner and A. L. Zagat for "warp" (without "time").
(Earliest cite in OED2: 1954; now expanded into multiple senses, the earliest being the 1937 Saari cite.)
Last modified 2022-12-27 02:25:12
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.