replicator

English

Etymology

replicate +‎ -or

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛplɪkeɪtɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛplɪkeɪtə/
• Hyphenation: rep‧li‧ca‧tor

Noun

replicator (plural replicators)

1. Something capable of self-replication, like a gene or meme.

   Hyponyms: cistron, gene, meme

   • 1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene:

     We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

2. (science fiction) A technological device that replicates physical objects.
   • 2001, Greg Cox, The Eugenics Wars Vol I: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Star Trek), Star Trek, →ISBN, page 76:

     Why, this planet was still centuries away from developing such necessities as personal replicators or portable nano-intelligences...

   • 2001, Judith Barad, Ed Robertson, The Ethics of Star Trek, Harper Perennial, →ISBN, page 74:

     either there is not such thing as a concept known as 'spacecraft' (inwhich case, any talk of spacecraft, warp drives, inertial dampers, replicators, and the like would be pointless), or indeed there is.

   • 2007, Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop, Basic Books, →ISBN, pages 301–302:

     The scanner here on Earth will destroy my brain and body, while recording the exact states of all of my cells. It will the transmit this information by radio. Travelling at the speed of light, the message will take three minutes to reach the Replicator on Mars. This will then create, out of new matter, a brain and body exactly like mine. It will be in this body that I shall wake up.

Related terms

• replica
• replicant
• replicate
• replication
• replicative
• replicatory
• reply

Translations

technical device

• Italian: replicatore m
• Norwegian: replikator m
• Turkish: replikatör

Further reading

• “replicator”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Latin

Verb

replicātor

1. second/third-person singular future passive imperative of replicō