cyberspace en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Southern-England) audio
- /ˈsaɪ.bəɹˌspeɪs/ (US)
- /ˈsaɪ.bəˌspeɪs/ (UK)
- sīʹbər-spās'
Etymology
Blend of cybernetics + space, equivalent to cyber- + space, coined by American-Canadian speculative fiction writer William Gibson in his short story collection Burning Chrome (1982) and popularized in his novel Neuromancer (1984).
Meanings
- (countable, uncountable) A world of information accessed through the Internet.
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(broadly, countable, dated, uncountable) The Internet as a whole.
“We call on all states, including China, to uphold their international commitments and obligations and to act responsibly in the international system, including in cyberspace,” according to a statement from NATO.
2021 July 19, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, David E. Sanger, quoting NATO, “U.S. Formally Accuses China of Hacking Microsoft”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:Meanwhile, the pioneers of the computer-mediated communication networks collectively referred to as cyberspace are not willing to wait. Employing whatever tools they can find, they are constantly pushing the techno-cultural envelope. Life in cyberspace is often conducted in primitive, frontier conditions, but it is a life which, at its best, is more egalitarian than elitist, and more decentralized than hierarchical.
1993 March, Mitch Kapor, “Where Is the Digital Highway Really Heading?”, in Wired Magazine:If, as we knew with increasing certainty, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and others were contesting us in cyberspace, it was time to fight back.
2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 175:However, some have accused cyberspace of provoking a dangerous collapse in the old order of civilised society. The shift in the balance of power online has given rise to a more powerful concern: the rise of the uncivil web.
2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in The Guardian:
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(countable, uncountable) A three-dimensional representation of virtual space in a computer network.
Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…
1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 51:I knew every chip in Bobby's simulator by heart; it looked like your workaday Ono-Sendai VII, the ‘Cyberspace Seven’, but I'd rebuilt it so many times that you'd have had a hard time finding a square millimetre of factory circuitry in all that silicon.
1982 July, William Gibson, “Burning Chrome”, in Omni, volume 4, number 10, page 72:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| cyberspaces | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Antonyms
Relateds
seaspace · metaverse · battlespace · cyberpunk · airspace
Synonyms
net · information highway · cloud · cyberspace · interwebz · t'internet · Internet · series of tubes · information superhighway · Infobahn · internet · interweb · Net · interwebs · digital highway · Intertubes
Translations (51)
th ไซเบอร์สเปซ (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · th ไซเบอร์สเปซ (world of information) · ru киберпростра́нство (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · ko 사이버 공간 (world of information) · it cyberspazio (world of information) · pt ciberespaço (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · ja サイバースペース (world of information) · fi kyberavaruus (world of information) · fr cyberespace (world of information) · ga an cibearspás (world of information) · gl ciberespazo (world of information) · cs kyberprostor (world of information) · ko 가상 공간 (world of information) · hy կիբերտարածք (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · af kuberruimte (world of information) · el κυβερνοχώρος (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · cmn 虛擬空間 /虚拟空间 (world of information) · pt ciberespaço (world of information) · sv sajberspejs (world of information) · el κυβερνοχώρος (world of information) · cmn 網絡空間 /网络空间 (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · et küberruum (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · lv kibertelpa (world of information) · fi kyberavaruus (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · es ciberespacio (world of information) · tr siberuzay (world of information) · ja サイバー空間 (world of information) · nrf cybèrespace (world of information) · sv cyberrymd (world of information) · cmn 網絡空間 /网络空间 (world of information) · id dunia maya (world of information) · et küberruum (world of information) · ru киберпростра́нство (world of information) · no kyberrom (world of information) · uk кіберпро́стір (world of information) · pl cyberprzestrzeń (world of information) · ko 사이버스페이스 (world of information) · de Cyberspace (world of information) · ms ruang siber (world of information) · ka კიბერსივრცე (world of information) · cmn 虛擬空間 /虚拟空间 (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · hy կիբերտարածք (world of information) · fo netrúm (world of information) · it ciberspazio (world of information) · ca ciberespai (world of information) · pl cyberprzestrzeń (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · io kiberspaco (world of information) · kk киберкеңістік (world of information) · id ruang siber (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space) · cmn 賽博空間 /赛博空间 (world of information) · cmn 賽博空間 /赛博空间 (science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space)