droid n.

a robot, esp. a humanoid one; an android

SF Encyclopedia


Star Wars

Robotics

  • 1952 M. Wolf Robots of the World! Arise! in Worlds of If July 76/2 page image Mari Wolf bibliography

    ‘Find out anything?’ ‘Yeah. Plenty. Our androids are busy, all right. They’re out in the city, every one of them. We've had a dozen police reports already.’ ‘Police reports! What’s wrong?’Jack shook his head. ‘It’s crazy. They’re swarming all over Carron City.They're stopping robots in the streets—household Robs, commercial Droids, all of them. They just look at them, and then the others quit work and start off with them. The police sent for us to come and get ours.’

  • 1976 G. Lucas Star Wars iv. 56 George Lucas

    'Droids can’t replace a man, Luke.

  • 1987 J.B. Stine Spaceballs ii. 8

    Dot Matrix, her faithful droid, continued fussing with the Princess’s wedding veil.

  • 1989 ‘G. Naylor’ Red Dwarf 43

    Two skutters, claw-headed service droids which looked like miniature amputee giraffes on motorized bases, swept into view and cleaned up the mess.

  • 1989 ‘G. Naylor’ Red Dwarf 81

    Skutters, the small service droids with three-fingered clawed hands, joined to their motorized bases by triple-jointed necks, whizzed between the various computer terminals, transporting sheets of data.

  • 1991 M. Weiss King's Test iv. iv. 327

    Only those commentators with the highest ratings were invited to attend, along with their 'droid reporters and camera crews.

  • 1994 M. M. Smith Only Forward 190 Michael Marshall Smith bibliography

    Zenda explained that the delivery girls are only pseudoflesh droids.

  • 1995 C. Stross Ship of Fools in Interzone (#98) Aug. 23/1 page image Charles Stross bibliography

    So the droids who implemented this piece of nonsense hired a hacker, who crufted them up something that looked like a 1200-baud serial line to the VM/CMS emulator, which actually tunnelled packets through the internet, from one workstation to another.

  • 1996 SFX May 96/2

    This less-than-cuddly little droid could be your best friend in a time of crisis.

  • 1997 2000 AD 28 Oct. (verso front cover)

    According to everything I see and read on this world, one word seems to prey on the minds of most Earthlings; sex. Certainly my editorial droids seem to spend a lot of time discussing the topic, hence this special sex-themed prog.

  • 2013 D. Driza Mila 2.0 451 Debra Driza bibliography

    With a rapidly expanding knot sealing off my throat, I turned to stare into the dark depths of the Potomac. Furious at my lack of control. How useless, programming a droid with tears. With a violent flick of my hand, I swiped at the liquid that spilled down my cheeks.


Research requirements

antedating 1952

Research History
Joshua Stratton located cites in an electronic version of George Lucas's second draft (January 1975) of the script for Star Wars. We would be interested in verification of this in a paper copy.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1952 example from Mari Wolf's "Robots of the World! Arise!" in _If_.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2013 cite from Debra Driza.

Last modified 2021-02-03 01:49:25
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.