31 Essential Science Fiction Terms And Where They Came From
There are so many words and phrases that we use in science
fiction—and even science—without giving it much thought. But
where did we get terms like "death ray," "terraforming," "hive
mind," "telepathy," and "parallel universe"?  Top image from
Philip Barshofsky's One Prehistoric Night as published in Wonder
Stories, an early science fiction example of using "alien" to
mean "a being from another planet."  Key sources for this post
include Jeff Prucher's wonderful Brave New Words: The Oxford
Dictionary of Science Fiction (Prucher also wrote the
fascinating post on scientific words that originated in science
fiction ), the Oxford English Dictionary science fiction words
citation project, and the Oxford English Dictionary itself.
They're all great places to get lost for a few days.  I've tried
to find the earliest citation of each word, but other than cases
in which someone clearly coined a term, it's possible that
earlier examples of these words exist.