Did you perhaps mean one of these? anile, audible
Definitions
Wiktionary
- n. science fiction A hypothetical device that enables users to communicate instantaneously across great distances; that is, a faster-than-light communication device.
Etymologies
- First used in 1966 in Rocannon's World and expanded on in 1974 in The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin; Le Guin states that she derived it from answerable. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The official name is Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator, but somebody dredged the name ansible out of an old book somewhere and it caught on.”
“I wonder how he will solve the real time Ansible communication or explanation there of, apparently via the "ansible" he can have real time time conversations.”
“The McDoon family is somehow related with Yount and in the course of the novel we will find quite a few details about that, but here I just want to mention that some humans have the capacity of perceiving Yount, capability which is related with the "ansible" technology the people there use to keep track of far away, inter-worlds travelers, and which seems to run in families.”
“Various gizmos are provided to allow them to function amid the alien corn, and they are provided with a handy widget called the "ansible," a piece of technology we should all have because it allows for instantaneous transmission of information, thus canceling out the delaying effects of the fourth dimension.”
““But there isn’t another kind of ansible,” Pitt said.”
“It will also assume that you know what an ansible is, and so on.”
“Her science fiction is great too, and she is undoubtedly an icon of the genre; I love the fact that, forty years after she invented the ansible, other authors still use the devices in their books, even borrowing the same technological constraints that Le Guin used, as if ansibles were somehow a common heritage of all scifi universes.”
“Do they tire of the messages coming in on the ansible, telling them they are backwards, wrong, out-of-step with the real seasons?”
“While the locals marvel at an alien artifact (an ansible) offered as part of a trade, Hamid has dreams of seeing the Beyond.”
“Another Vatta ship had reported in via ansible; its captain accepted her authority.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ansible’.
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science fact or fiction
pretty open-ended here—terms, ideas, lingo, technologies and phenomena (real or postulated) that are, were, should be or could be used in speculative fiction
tachyon, mecha, dropship, wetware, meatspace, nanobot, cloned meat, asteroid mining, hyperdrive, wormhole, parallel universe, distributed intel... and 464 more...
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 516 more...
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Literary Coinage
Wonderful words or phrases authors have invented
jabberwock, thumbfumble, zippicamiknicks, gryphoemia, ansible, gloomth, grok, mimsy, nymphet, smee, runcible spoon, centrifugal bumbl... and 40 more...
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Criswell Predicts
Words describing a future that may or may not be entirely grounded in reality. Not to be used for predictive purposes. I do not have the gift of premonition. In fact, all these ideas come from popu...
flying car, space tourism, big brother, soylent green, brave new world, first contact, domestic android, skynet, new world order, collectivism, world peace, laser pistol and 93 more...
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maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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bkerr's Words
wyrd, absinthe, homunculus, zorkmid, informon, decider, diachronic, frak, hwæt, feldercarb, yawp, dogfooding and 540 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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Logophile, The Back Page (AKA: just c...
node, nexus, locus, toroidal, ivory, kestrel, lyre, muscat, caldera, tapestry, codex, paragon and 103 more...
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artoparts's Words
illation, finite, edify, abide, abrade, vouch, amiss, vociferate, perusing, techantiquery, rigamarole, holon and 615 more...
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dann's words
just some nice words that i like.
beamish, snark, sundry, contrariwise, salsify, cephalopod, omphaloskepsis, grok, resistentialism, peristerophobia, aglet, ferrule and 125 more...
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harrisj's Words
skeumorph, liminal, enervated, essential, moiety, motley, haphazard, bone-picker, resolute, petard, jigsaw, schism and 117 more...
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drseatbelt's Words
bilious, centenarian, droll, palliative, cortege, stultify, polysemy, suffuse, lambent, timorous, aegis, modicum and 236 more...
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A Peckerwick of Fiffoldry
fogray, whalesong, solregn, shoecabbage, thorn-bush, thistledown, pomander, thornbush, dreamy duskywing, sedge, unbunting-like, quilp and 119 more...
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bobodod's Words
cultie, screwery, gauge, wanker, truthiness, harangue, mediocre, ragamuffin, elysian, spoonerism, loquacious, apostle and 240 more...
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froseph's list
saritorial, pogrom, synecdoche, metonymy, tonsorial, prophylactic, ozymandias, nepenthe, tonsorial, tranche, allodium, allodial and 156 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ansible.

madmouth A communication device in Ursula LeGuin's 'Left Hand of Darkness' Apr 11, 2009