Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Cyborg
/ˈsaɪbɔːɡ/noun
A being whose body is part flesh and part machinery.
The Greek roots
κυβερνήτης
kybernḗtēs
steersman, helmsman
ὄργανον
órganon
instrument, tool
Literally: “steersman organism”
The story of the word
Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline coined it in 1960 in a paper about space travel, arguing that hauling an Earth-like environment into orbit was the wrong approach and adapting the astronaut was the right one. Their cybernetic organism was a self-regulating body extended by drugs and hardware. Both halves are Greek: κυβερνήτης, the helmsman, which Norbert Wiener had picked for cybernetics in 1948, and ὄργανον, a tool. The same helmsman, through Latin gubernare, gives us govern.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1960
Same family
cyberneticsorganorganismgovern
In a sentence
Anyone with a pacemaker and a cochlear implant is a cyborg by the 1960 definition.
The film keeps asking which parts of the cyborg still count as her.