Planet Earth n.

(without the), the earth, as distinct from the rest of the universe, esp. when considered as the planet on which humans live, or on which living organisms form an ecological system; the whole world

  • 1858 Hamilton (Ohio) Weekly Telegraph 16 Sept. page image

    He would show up a mass of corruption that would astonish the natives, and perhaps seriously endanger the equilibrium of planet Earth.

  • 1868 H. T. W. Adams Alphabet Geololy & Elementary Mineralogy 41

    The sedimentary rocks…, with their alternations of rock and imbedded fossils, give us a correct history of planet Earth since that early period.

  • 1941 Comet July 72/1 (mock advertisement) page image

    FOR FULL INFORMATION [/]  WRITE TO [/]  SPACE PETS, Inc. [/]  BLASTPORT [/]   ENGLAND [/]  PLANET EARTH.

  • 1948 J. Vance Hard Luck Diggings in Startling Stories July 106/1 page image Jack Vance bibliography

    You must remember that this is not Planet Earth, and conditions—the psychological, the biological, and…the essentially logical circumstances—are different from what you have been accustomed to.

  • 1990 T. Gifford Assassini iv. 427

    It is, Holiness, directly related to your continuing usefulness on Planet Earth, however long or short your remaining time.

  • 2002 T. Clancy Red Rabbit 496

    There was no use turning on the bedside radio. Hungarian—actually Magyar—was a language probably found on the planet Mars. For damned sure, it didn’t belong on Planet Earth.

  • 2003 J. Varley Red Thunder xx. 216 John Varley

    They were all opposed to the newly christened International Power Administration and in favor of staying on a polluted and threatened Planet Earth, and many of them threw rocks and Molotov cocktails to prove how passionately they loved the Earth.

Research requirements

antedating 1858
Research History
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 1991 reprint of Thomas Gifford's 1990 "The Assassin".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 2004 reprint of John Varley's 2003 "Red Thunder".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 2003 reprint of Tom Clancy's 2002 "Red Rabbit".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1948 cite from Jack Vance's "Hard Luck Diggings".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1941 cite from "Comet" magazine, in the form of an advertisement in a fictitious future newspaper, 'The Spacean'.

OED2 had cites dating from 1965 to 1979; OED3 pushed this back to 1858.

Last modified 2021-12-22 11:38:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.