| Definition | a creature not from Earth |
| OED requirements | antedating 1942 |
| Earliest cite | Martin Pearson, The Embassy |
| Comment | Edward Bornstein submitted a 1954 cite from Robert Heinlein's "Star Lummox". Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 1951 cite from Mack Reynolds' "The Case of the Little Green Men". Cory Panshin submitted a cite from a reprint of Fredric Brown's "Honeymoon in Hell"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1950 first magazine appearance. Mike Christie submitted a 1949 cite from L. Sprague de Camp's "The Animal-Cracker Plot". Mike Christie submitted a 1942 cite from Martin Pearson's "The Embassy".
Earliest cite in the OED: 1963. |
| Last modified | 6 July, 2008 |
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| 1949 L. S. de Camp in Astounding Sci. Fiction July 80/1 | He dreaded pricking the Dzlieri with the knife-point and bringing the extraterrestrial up with a roar of rage, but he had to take the chance. |
| 1951 M. Reynolds Case of Little Green Men 38 | ‘Listen, Harry‥. You hired me to check on whether or not any extra-terrestrials—’ I'd picked up that word in the stories I'd been reading all afternoon—‘were hanging around your affairs. I don't think sitting here reading your magazine is going to get me very far along in that direction.’ |
| 1953 R. A. Heinlein Starman Jones (1975) iii. 37 | He saw the first extra-terrestrial, an eight-foot native of Epsilon Gemini V. |
| 1983 R. Short Gospel from Outer Space v. 61 | Instead of Peter Pan‥we have E.T., the little ‘extra-terrestrial’ who also introduces children to flying but also wants to ‘go home’. |
| 1987 O. Butler Dawn (1991) i. ii. 11 | You're one of the few English speakers who never considered that she might be in the hands of extraterrestrials. |
| 1988 S. McCrumb Bimbos of Death Sun xii. 157 | An assortment of medieval dignitaries and extraterrestrials sipped grapefruit punch (listed on the menu as Pangalactic Gargleblaster). |
| 1991 A. D. Foster Cat.a.lyst ix. 133 | One o' his theories claimed that these here Nazca lines were made by the locals to help extraterrestrials' spaceships land here. |
| 1992 Sci. Fiction Age Nov. 14/2 | Most readers are going to recognize the feeling, even if they've never had it about extraterrestrials. |