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I've encountered a word in print which does not exist, and which Google isn't auto-correcting to an existing word. I wonder which word the author had meant to use.

Following is the sentence in which the word appears. It's from a fairly well-known novel "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov.

At least, it amounted to an ultimatum, though a superficial reading of the visigraphed document would lead one to suppose that it was a friendly interchange of greetings between two potentates.

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This is a made up word invented by Issac Asimov to name some future means of transmitting a document from place to place. Presumably some form of futuristic fax or PDF!
It is common in science fiction to give an invented name to such technologies for example Warp Drive in Star Trek.

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  • That makes perfect sense in this context. I'm curious if you guessed or if you've also seen this word being used by Asimov elsewhere -- in other books of the series or in chapters I haven't read yet.
    – Peeyush Kushwaha
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 12:28
  • It does come up again, page 115 "visicasters".
    – Peeyush Kushwaha
    Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 15:42
  • I can't recall having seen Asimov use the word elsewhere, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. My answer is based on over 60 years reading science fiction and a google search that throws up nothing relevant. It's not exactly guessing, more experience - making up words what SF authors do..
    – Peter Jennings
    Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 19:21
  • I just read that chapter and thought the same thing. I assumed it was a sort of fax or otherwise reproduced copy of a document. Visi (visual) graph (written)
    – Viski
    Commented Apr 23, 2022 at 22:58
  • It's a pretty cool word and since techies don't read too many novels, they wouldn't have thought to use it.
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 23, 2022 at 23:11

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