Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Cyberspace
/ˈsaɪbərspeɪs/noun
The notional space in which digital communication and data exist.
The Greek roots
κυβερνήτης
kybernḗtēs
helmsman, steersman
Literally: “steersman space”
Follow a root:κυβερνήτης5 words
The story of the word
William Gibson put the word in a short story in 1982 and made it famous in Neuromancer two years later, having chosen it, by his own account, as evocative and essentially meaningless. The cyber- comes from Norbert Wiener's cybernetics of 1948, and behind that stands κυβερνήτης, the man at the ship's steering oar. Latin took the same word as gubernare, which is why governor and government are steering words too.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1982
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
cyberneticsgoverngovernorcyborg
In a sentence
The phrase sounded futuristic in 1994 and slightly quaint by 2010.