Phaser

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈfeɪzɚ/

Definitions

1. A fictional instrument capable of releasing energy waves to disrupt or influence physical targets and their characteristics in imaginative narratives
2. An imagined tool that generates disruptive energy patterns intended to modify objects or incapacitate beings in speculative fiction
3. A conceptual device often depicted in science fiction that emits energy waves to alter physical matter or incapacitate entities

Etymology: The science-fiction weapon was named by accident of an acronym that was later rewritten. In its first form, the name was an abbreviation for "photon maser," a device that amplified light in the same way a maser amplifies microwaves. The idea was that the weapon would fire a beam of photons. When the name was adopted for the fictional weapon in Star Trek, the expansion was later changed on screen to "phased energy rectifier," and in that version the beam is made of "nadions" rather than photons, so the original scientific link was dropped. The other sense of the word has a simpler history. In phase modulation, a term from electronics and signal processing, "phaser" is formed from "phase" with the agent suffix "-er," describing a device that shifts the phase of a signal. Its two uses thus share a surface spelling but come from different sources: one is an invented acronym, the other a plain English compound built from a physics term.