cloaking device
English
Etymology
1968. Coined by D. C. Fontana in the script for the Star Trek episode The Enterprise Incident.
Noun
cloaking device (plural cloaking devices)
- (science fiction) A device which renders a person or thing invisible.
- 1968, Dorothy Catherine Fontana, The Enterprise Incident (Star Trek), season 3, episode 2:
- Spock: "I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless."
- 1980, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas, The Empire Strikes Back:
- Captain Needa: "They can't have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device."
- 2001, Fforde, Jasper, The Eyre Affair:
- I put out my hand and touched the warm surface of the camouflaged Rolls-Royce. I was going to ask Mycroft if I could have the cloaking device fitted to my Speedster but I was too late; enthused by my interest he had trotted off to a large roll-top bureau and was beckoning me over excitedly.
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Derived terms
- decloak
References
- “cloaking device” in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford University Press, 2007, →ISBN.
- cloaking device n. at the OED Science Fiction Citations Project