Droid (Star Wars)

Droids R2-D2 (left) and C-3PO (right), first featured in Star Wars (1977)

In the Star Wars space opera franchise, a droid is a fictional robot possessing some degree of artificial intelligence. The term is a clipped form of "android",[1] a word originally reserved for robots designed to look and act like a human.[2] The word "android" itself stems from the New Latin word "androīdēs", meaning "manlike", itself from the Ancient Greek ἀνδρος (andrós) (genitive of ἀνήρ (anḗr), "man (adult male)" or "human being") + -ειδής (-eidḗs), itself from εἶδος (eîdos, "form, image, shape, appearance, look").[3]

Writer and director George Lucas first used the term "droid" in the second draft script of Star Wars, completed 28 January 1975.[4] However, the word does have a precedent: science fiction writer Mari Wolf used the word in her story "Robots of the World! Arise!" in 1952. It is not known if Lucas knew of this reference when he wrote Star Wars, or if he came up with the term independently.[5]

The word "droid" has been a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd since 1977.[6][7][8][9]

  1. ^ droid Archived 2011-07-27 at the Wayback Machine, The Word Guy. (November 9, 2009)
  2. ^ Prucher, Jeff (May 7, 2007). "android". Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford University Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8. Archived from the original on July 7, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2016.
  3. ^ "Definition of android | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  4. ^ "Adventures of the Starkiller (Second Draft) – Starkiller". Archived from the original on 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  5. ^ "I: Designing R2-D2 - 3dsf.info". sites.google.com. Archived from the original on 2021-07-19. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  6. ^ "DROID (Original registration)". United States Patent and Trademark Office. September 22, 1977. Archived from the original on April 4, 2013. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  7. ^ "DROID (Current registration)". United States Patent and Trademark Office. September 26, 2008. Archived from the original on April 4, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  8. ^ "Droid". The Free Encyclopedia. 1981. Archived from the original on May 1, 2021. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  9. ^ Hachman, Mark (July 6, 2010). "TweetUp Buys, Renames Twidroid Twitter App". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2010.