xenology n.

the scientific study of aliens, esp. xenobiology n.

Aliens

  • 1949 L. S. de Camp Colorful Character in Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec. 134/2 page image L. Sprague de Camp bibliography

    ‘Want to see him too?’ Schmidt shook his head. ‘For some reason I’ve never had much interest in the Dzlieri. If I ever get around to working on the xenology of Vishnu, then maybe I’ll take a squint.’

  • 1953 ‘A. Boucher’ Conquest in Star Science Fiction Stories #2 126 Anthony Boucher bibliography

    Dr. Wenceslaus Hornung, xenologist—even more untried in his job than I was in mine. For the Giants were the first Xenoids (aliens to you) that an earth man had ever found. For more than two centuries we’d been developing what some of them called Contact-Theory. It had never proved necessary in the solar system, but the theoretical work went on. Of all the boys who’d ever taken the works in BLAM (Biology, Linguistics, Anthropology, Mathematics) Laus was reckoned the absolute tops in xenology—so damned good that he could even get away with eccentricities like taking a pet on a space trip or scraping the hair off his face like an ancient Roman or a Dawn-Atomic man.

  • 1954 R. A. Heinlein Star Lummox in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 27 Robert A. Heinlein bibliography

    I meant to major in xenology and exotic biology in college.

  • 1957 T. Sturgeon It Opens the Sky in Venture Science Fiction Nov. 16/1 page image Theodore Sturgeon bibliography

    You have every rotten plague and dangerous plant pest known to xenology, right here in your hand.

  • 1966 A. B. Chandler Edge of Night in Worlds of If Sept. 26/1 page image A. Bertram Chandler bibliography

    I hold a doctorate in Xenology. And I tell you, John, that what we’ve found in this ship, so far, doesn’t add up to any kind of sense at all.

  • 1978 M. D. Broxon Singularity in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine May–June 152 page image Mildred Downey Broxon bibliography

    Xenology students tried to communicate with them, as an exercise. No one had yet succeeded.

  • 1990 S. S. Tepper Raising the Stones i. iv. 127 Sheri S. Tepper bibliography

    Included in the protectorate with the gentle Osmers and placid Glothees were the Ninfadelian Porsa, a race of raucous mucusoids so foul and unloveable that even graduate students in xenology, hardened by years of study among primitive and even disgusting societies, could seldom be found to live near the Porsa and study their ways.

  • 1998 D. Brin Heaven’s Reach 160 David Brin bibliography

    Lark abruptly recalled something he had read once, in a rare galacto-xenology text, about a type of hydro-life called Zang.

  • 2013 J. E. Gunn Transcendental vii. 103 page image James E. Gunn bibliography

    I learned a bit of human speech and what passed for humor between us both. We told jokes. I learned something of human history and the history of other species in the galaxy and compared them to our own. That was my education in xenology.


Research requirements

antedating 1949

Earliest cite

L. Sprague de Camp, "The Colorful Character", in Thrilling Wonder Stories

Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a 1953 cite from Anthony Boucher.

Last modified 2022-03-01 13:50:28
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.