ansible means A hypothetical device that enables users to communicate instantaneously across great distances; that is, a faster-than-light communication device. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
ansible is pronounced /ˈæn.sɪ.bəl/.
Why “ansible” is a great word
ANSIBLE — [Noun] A hypothetical device enabling instantaneous communication across any distance, rendering the cosmic void answerable. Coined by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin in 1966 from a clipping of the English word 'answerable.' Unlike "radio" (which is bound by light's lag, its signals aging into echoes across the void) or "tachyon" (a speculative particle of pure physics), the ansible is a literary artifact of human longing. It is the sudden click of connection across a parsec of silence, the real-time plea from a ship in peril reaching home, the shared breath between colonists and the world they left behind—a perfect, silent bridge against a universe built for irrevocable separation.
Etymology
Coined by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin in 1966 in her novella Rocannon's World; Le Guin states that she derived it from answerable . The word was further spread by its adoption into other science fiction worlds, including by Orson Scott Card in Ender's Game (1986), Vernor Vinge in The Blabber (1988) and Dan Simmons in Hyperion (1989).
noun
- A hypothetical device that enables users to communicate instantaneously across great distances; that is, a faster-than-light communication device.““You remember the ansible, the machine I showed you in the ship, which can speak instantly to other worlds, with no loss of years– […] ”
“An ansible would theoretically be powered by subatomic particles that have undergone quantum entanglement, which utilizes Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance', allowing the alteration of one particle to instantaneously alter the state of its paired particle.”