English

Noun

replicator ‎(plural replicators)

1. Something capable of self-replication, like a gene or meme.
   • 1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene:

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

2. A (fictional) 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 978-0671021276, 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 978-0060933265, 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 978-0465030781, 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
• reply

Translations

External links

• replicator in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• replicator in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Latin

Verb

replicātor

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