cloaking device

1968. Coined by D. C. Fontana in the script for the Star Trek episode The Enterprise Incident.

cloaking device (plural cloaking devices)

1. (science fiction) A device which renders a person or thing invisible.
   • 1968, Dorothy Catherine Fontana, The Enterprise Incident (Star Trek), season 3, episode 2:

     Spock: "I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless."

   • 1980, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas, The Empire Strikes Back:

     Captain Needa: "They can't have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device."

   • 2001, Fforde, Jasper, The Eyre Affair:

     I put out my hand and touched the warm surface of the camouflaged Rolls-Royce. I was going to ask Mycroft if I could have the cloaking device fitted to my Speedster but I was too late; enthused by my interest he had trotted off to a large roll-top bureau and was beckoning me over excitedly.

• decloak

• “cloaking device” in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford University Press, 2007, →ISBN.
• cloaking device n. at the OED Science Fiction Citations Project