I’ve seen this word used in several mediums (mostly from the video game Final Fantasy 3, but it’s also popped up in several short stories and at least one comic book). The word is “Esper”. I’ve tried looking it up, but my dictionary has no entry. I assume it’s slang for someone who has ESP (ESP-er), but is there some other definition? Is this a real word, or even a relatively well-circulated slang term, or is it just the product of a couple writers’ imaginations?
-SPOOFE
To the best of my knowledge as a myth/fantasy/video game buff, espers are a made up race from Final Fantasy 3 (US, 6 japan). I’ve never heard of them before/since.
Well, in terms of science fiction, especially from the 1950’s and 1960’s, an “esper” is usually someone with ESP, hence “esper”. It can also be applied in a story to someone with other kinds of mental powers, like telekinesis, teleportation, firestarting (I don’t remember what the technical term is for that), etc.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
pyrokenetic
one of the earliest episodes of star trek used the term for someone with ESP
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
The earliest use of the word “esper” I know of is Alfred Bester’s novel The Demolished Man (1953). It’s likely that the pulp SF of the 1940s or possibly even 1930s may have tossed the word about. After all, this was the heyday of bogus “psychical research.” But it definitely caught on after Bester wrote about the “Esper’s Guild.” Much of the psi powers in modern SF date back to Bester. J. Michael Straczynski even named the head of his Psi Corps in Babylon 5 “Bester.”
(As for whether it’s a real term or just something a sci-fi writer came up with… well, is “terraform” a real word? What about “blaster”? “Phaser”? “Holodeck”? “Ansible”? “Hyperspace”? “Mirrorshades”? “Nanotech”? How about “ICE”?)
Oh, incidentally, I’ve just found a website that mentions this:
esper
[first use unknown, goes back at least to 1940s]
General SFnal term for a human or other sophont able to use ESP. In George O. Smith’s classic Highways In Hiding and many later novels the term specifically excludes telepathic and empathic ability, being restricted to modes of clairvoyance or remote sensing.
http://tuxedo.org/~esr/sf-words/index.html