Replicant

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A synthetic being or artificial creature designed to resemble and function like a natural organism, often possessing human or biological characteristics
2. A manufactured artificial being engineered to imitate and perform like a natural living organism with biological or humanoid attributes
3. An artificial entity created to mimic the features and behaviors of a biological organism, often exhibiting human-like traits in its function and appearance

Etymology: The science fiction sense of "replicant" was coined by screenwriter David Peoples for the 1982 film Blade Runner, where it names the bioengineered humanoids who are the film's central antagonists. Peoples drew on an older English word with a plain, mechanical meaning: a replicant is something that replicates, or copies, an original. The word comes from Latin "replicans," the present participle of "replicare," meaning "to fold back" or "to repeat," built from "re-" (back, again) and "plicare" (to fold). That Latin root is what ties the film's coinage to ordinary vocabulary. "Replicate" and "replica" descend from the same verb, so the film took a word about copying and gave it a specific science fiction meaning: a manufactured being that is almost indistinguishable from a human but was made, not born.

Synonyms: duplicate, copy, clone, imitation, replica

Antonyms: original, unique, authentic, genuine, real