Word.ws English Dictionary

Skynet

Syllables: Sky·netUK/ˈskaɪnɛt/

Skynet proper noun: a family of United Kingdom military communications satellites.

skynet: a family of United Kingdom military communications satellites
Image: United States Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun (1)

Skynet

  1. A family of United Kingdom military communications satellites.
    • On returning to Stanmore in 1967 he [the author] was in charge of the development of transportable satellite earth stations Types III and IV for use in the British Skynet defence communications system. He was responsible for the proposal and all the technical concepts for the communications payload...1984, W. P. Robins, Phase Noise in Signal Sources: Theory and Applications (IEE Telecommunications Series; 9), London: Peter Peregrinus Ltd. on behalf of the Institution of Electrical Engineers...
    • But [William Robert] Graham confirmed that a proposal to carry the British Skynet satellites aboard the shuttle [Space Shuttle] had already been terminated.1986, Nature: A Weekly Journal of Science, volume 320, London: Macmillan, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 216

Proper noun (2)

Skynet

  1. A distributed artificial intelligence system that is aware of the physical world and acts autonomously through cyborgs and computer control systems; (by extension) an uncontrollable AI that threatens humanity.
    • In the first two films, Skynet is a colossal piece of hardware, a single unit which contains an artificial intelligence designed to run the US nuclear weapons system, a doomsday computer that becomes aware and destroys humanity. […] It was only through some very fancy footwork that Terminator 2...2005, Roz Kaveney, “Creation as Product: The Paradox of Franchises”, in From Alien to the Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film, London: I.B. Tauris, →ISBN, page 125
    • Maybe I watched too many Mazinger shows or read too many Yoko Tsuno BDs as a kid and, surely, I think the best way to end […] humanity would be to migrate SkyNet to Windows Vista, but somehow I thought it would be fun.2012, Cristina Urdiales, “Foreword”, in Collaborative Assistive Robot for Mobility Enhancement (CARMEN): The Bare Necessities: Assisted Wheelchair Navigation and beyond (Intelligent Systems Reference...

Examples of Skynet in a sentence

  • He was responsible for the proposal and all the technical concepts for the communications payload of the Skynet II satellite.1984, W. P. Robins, Phase Noise in Signal Sources: Theory and Applications (IEE Telecommunications Series; 9), London: Peter Peregrinus...
  • Since Skynet is presumably aware of its own origins, this makes the first film marginally less plausible.2005, Roz Kaveney, “Creation as Product: The Paradox of Franchises”, in From Alien to the Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film, London...
  • The Skynet model from the Terminator movies didn't really work, because true consciousness was a by-product of chemistry and physical constitution.2017 April, Jonathan Maberry, chapter 128, in Dogs of War: A Joe Ledger Novel, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 518:
  • Holding signs and banners reading Stop the AI Race and Don’t Build Skynet, the protesters marched through the city and gave speeches outside the offices of Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI.2026 April 3, Matteo Wong, Lila Shroff, “Silicon Valley Is in a Frenzy Over Bots That Build Themselves”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The...

Origin of Skynet

sky + net. From sky and network. The first satellite, Skynet 1A, was launched on 22 November 1969.

From the Terminator film series, the first of which, The Terminator, premiered in 1984. Coined by Canadian filmmaker and explorer James Cameron, who also directed the first two Terminator films he wrote.

Questions about Skynet

What does Skynet mean?
Skynet means a family of United Kingdom military communications satellites.
How do you use Skynet in a sentence?
He was responsible for the proposal and all the technical concepts for the communications payload of the Skynet II satellite.
What part of speech is Skynet?
Skynet is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Skynet?
Skynet is pronounced /ˈskaɪnɛt/ (UK).

Words near Skynet in the dictionary

  1. skymap
  2. skymapping
  3. skymaps
  4. skymen
  5. skyness
  6. Skynet
  7. skypan
  8. skypans
  9. skype
  10. skyped
  11. skypeing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Skynet (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-Skynet.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Skynet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skynet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.