planet-wide adj.

extending over or affecting an entire planet

OED records a 1920 example in the sense ‘affecting all of Earth’.

  • 1932 R. F. Starzl Martian Cabal in Astounding Stories May 204/2 page image R. F. Starzl bibliography

    A planet-wide sentimental spree over the revival of the monarchy and the marriage of the beautiful and popular princess.

  • 1934 S. G. Weinbaum Valley of Dreams in Wonder Stories Nov. 690/1 page image Stanley G. Weinbaum bibliography

    With only coal and oil—just combustion or electric power—where'd they get the energy to build a planet-wide canal system, thousands and thousands of miles of 'em?

  • 1945 Astounding Science Fiction June 32 page image

    Handing over a planet-wide empire to a successor is not a thing to be undertaken in a day or two—normally.

  • 1954 C. Oliver Field Expedient in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 89/2 page image Chad Oliver bibliography

    After a million years or so of bashing in each other’s brains with bigger and better weapons, the human animal had finally achieved a fairly uniform, stable, planet-wide civilization.

  • 1979 J. P. Hogan Two Faces of Tomorrow (1987) 87 James P. Hogan

    The only way you'll ever know how a planetwide complex of them will perform is by building it.

  • 1984 R. Silverberg Trouble With Sempoanga in R. Silverberg Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1984) 171—2 Robert Silverberg

    His own planet, Waldemar, was a frosty place with a planetwide winter for three-quarters of the year, and on Sempoanga he erupted with great gusto into eternal tropical summer.

  • 1992 N. Stephenson Snow Crash xlviii. 328 Neal Stephenson

    A fundamental rebuilding of the whole Metaverse, carried out on a planetwide, corporate level.

  • 2002 A. Roberts Stone 184

    I won prizes for playing the conscree, and travelled to Sobrianna, the major city on Terne to take part in planetwide competition.

  • 2002 Cult Times Apr. 60/4

    An advertising executive discovers that he is actually living in a virtual world designed to stop people knowing of a planetwide apocalypse.

  • 2005 I. M. Banks Algebraist iii. 157 Iain M. Banks

    The gas-giant filled the sky, so close that its rotund bulk took on the appearance of a vast wall, its belts and zones of tearing, swirling, ever-eddying clouds looking like colossal contra-rotating, planet-wide streams of madly coloured liquid caught whirling past each other under perfectly transparent ice.

  • 2005 C. Stross Accelerando viii. 369 Charles Stross bibliography

    Although, on the other hand, if we can mobilize enough broad support to become the first visible planetwide polity…

  • 2020 H. Green A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor 441 Hank Green bibliography

    We knew it was there, but whatever systems Carl used to turn our biosphere into a planetwide computer were too elegant for us to even perceive. You’d almost think it wasn’t there, which I guess is the point.


Research requirements

antedating 1932

Earliest cite

R. F. Starzl, in Astounding

Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1945 cite from editorial material by John Campbell in Astounding.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1949 reprint of Stanley G. Weinbaum's "Valley of Dreams": Jesse Sheidlower verified this in the original publication (Wonder Stories, November 1934)
Fred Galvin submitted a 1942 cite from "The Leapers" by Carol Grey (pseudonym of Robert W. Lowndes)
Fred Galvin submitted a 1941 cite from "The King's Eye" by James MacCreigh (pseudonym of Frederik Pohl)

Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a reprint of "The Machine" by "Don A. Stuart" (John W. Campbell); we have enough evidence that we don't actively need to verify it in its original publication (Astounding Stories, February 1935).
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2020 cite from Hank Green.

Earliest cite in OED2: 1969. Updated to 1920, in a non-SFnal context, in OED3.

Last modified 2023-11-11 13:16:50
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.