pressure suit

English

Pressure suit made for aviation pioneer Wiley Post (1934)

US astronaut John Glenn in pressure suit (1962)

Etymology

Coined by American science fiction authors E. E. Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby in their 1928 novel The Skylark of Space, first serialized in Amazing Stories.

Noun

pressure suit (plural pressure suits)

1. (aviation, astronautics) A sealed, full-body garment, usually with an attachable helmet, which maintains air pressure or mechanical pressure around the body of an astronaut or aviator to compensate for the low density of the air at high altitudes.
   • 1928 September, E. E. Smith, Lee Hawkins Garby, “The Skylark of Space”, in Amazing Stories, volume 3, number 6, page 539:

     Have you fur pressure-suits?

   • 1964 November 19, Walter Sullivan, “Apes Surviving in Vacuum Tests: Research Hints Astronauts Have Chance in Accidents”, in New York Times, retrieved 3 May 2014:

     The chances for survival would be greatly increased if one member of the crew in a punctured ship was wearing a pressure suit.

   • 2002 July 29, Nigel Fountain, “Obituary: John Cunningham, Wartime night-fighter hero and post-war Comet airliner test pilot”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 3 May 2014:

     In 1947 he had taken a de Havilland Vampire jet fighter to a then world record height of 59,460 feet, without a pressure suit,

   • 2011 April 12, Jeffrey Kluger, “Gagarin's Golden Anniversary”, in Time, retrieved 3 May 2014:

     Alan Shepard, the first American in space, famously relieved himself inside his silver pressure suit while waiting out the countdown in his tiny Mercury capsule.

Hypernyms

• protective suit, suit

Hyponyms

• space suit

Coordinate terms

• (suit to protect wearer from the environment): diving suit, environmental suit
• (aviator garment): flight suit

Translations

full-body garment, which maintains pressure

• German: Druckanzug (de) m

References

• “pressure suit”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007), “pressure suit”, in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 155–156.
• Jesse Sheidlower, editor (2001–2024), “pressure-suit n.”, in Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.