Dalek

Recording of a Dalek voice

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Dalek

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The Daleks

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Coined by Terry Nation in 1963 for his script of The Mutants (later retitled "The Daleks"), the second serial of the first season of Doctor Who. Accounts of how he devised the word vary. Within the Doctor Who universe, the word is supposed to be related to the name of the people from whom the Daleks evolved, either the Kaleds (as according to later serial Genesis of the Daleks) or the Dals (as in The Daleks), or to derive from a word meaning "gods" in their (fictional) language, in which the sacred "Book of Predictions" is written. According to the I, Davros audio fiction the book reads "...and on that day, men will become as gods", with the last word pronounced "Dal-eks".

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑːlɛk/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

Dalek (plural Daleks)

1. (science fiction) A member of a species of extraterrestrial cyborg mutants who appear in the television programme Doctor Who and are known for travelling in metallic shells, having monotone, mechanically distorted voices, repeating a limited number of phrases, and their fanatical obsession with exterminating other, non-Dalek beings.
   • 1964, David Whitaker, Dr. Who and the Daleks, chapter 6 (based on the film script Dr. Who and the Daleks by Milton Subotsky, based itself on the tele-script The Mutants/The Daleks by Terry Nation):

     'But Alydon,' I persisted, 'the Daleks aren't human beings. They're just evil, half creatures, half machines, determined to destroy you.'

   • 1987, Barry Norman, The Movie Greats, page 144:

     […] what kind of courage it must have taken for Hawkins, an actor renowned for the quality of his voice, to go back onto the set to deliver lines in that oesophageal monotone, what he called his "Dalek voice".

   • p. 1996, Together with English Core, fourteenth edition (Rachna Sagar Pvt. Ltd., →ISBN, page 234:

     This synthesizer is by far the best I have heard, because it varies the intonation, and does not speak like a Dalek.

   • 2000, Rosie Parnell (Rosie White), The Crit: An Architecture Student's Handbook (co-written with Charles Doidge, Rachel Sara), page xii:

     My voice still insisted on disappearing into my shoes every time it happened so that I sounded like a Dalek, but with a bit of experience behind me I felt marginally more confident.

   • 2003, Siân Preece, “Country Cooking Countdown”, in Scottish Girls About Town, published 2004, page 19:

     One man was skiting around on a big, wheeled camera like a Dalek, dodging the scurrying assistants and clipboard-wielders, […]

   • 2006, Gareth Roberts, chapter 9, in I Am a Dalek:

     Then the Dalek turned and picked off the other passengers one by one. It screamed... 'Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!'

   • a. 2010, Peter Bazalgette, quoted in the Funniest Thing You Never Said: 2, page 333:

     Gordon Brown sounds like a Dalek with about three stock phrases... Remember, Daleks always want world domination but they always lose.

   • 2011, Colin Neill, Turas: A Story of Strangers in a Strange Land, page 166:

     And Peter was so focused too: like a Dalek in a track suit.

2. (figuratively) One who is dogmatic, unfeeling and determined.
   • 1973, Trades Union Congress, Report of Annual Trades Union Congress:

     In an article in The Times Lord Chalfont said: "The programmed Daleks of the French military planners were evolving a plan which was really a carbon copy of the British plan."

   • 1981, Kjell Raaheim, Janek Wankowski, Helping Students to Learn at University, →ISBN:

     And rightly so, if only out of respect for the numerous idiosyncrasies left out of any generalized model of behaviour and, if only out of sheer personal honesty in admitting that individuals are never like the streamlined daleks of psychometric regressions.

   • 1999, Chris Horrie, Adam Nathan, Live TV:

     The following year Dennis Potter, by then dying of a cancer tumour he had named 'Rupert Murdoch', attacked [John] Birt as 'a croak-voiced Dalek' dressed in an Armani suit.

   • 2010, Laurie Oakes, On the Record: Politics, politicians and power, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     In a remarkable speech in 2006, Ray criticised 'factional Daleks' and 'the Stasi element' — apparatchiks 'highly professional and proficient but with no Labor soul'.

• Dalek voice

• Dalke, Kadel, laked

Unadapted borrowing from English Dalek.

• IPA^(key): /ˈda.lek/
• Rhymes: -alek
• Hyphenation: Dà‧lek

Dalek m (invariable)

1. Dalek (all senses)