noun

• 1A thing which replicates or copies something.

  ‘They are faced with genuine hardships and dangers, with no ‘magical’ super-technology like transporters or replicators or holodecks or warp drives to save them.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The transporters and replicators begin turning the ship into an ancient alien temple.’
  • ‘Each layer is molded in one substrate, the two are joined using an optically transparent bonding layer and the replicators print the discs in the conventional way.’

  1. 1.1Biology A structural gene at which replication of a specific replicon is believed to be initiated.
     ‘The shaky claim that DNA is a replicator ignores the endless subtle variation by means of which nature passes life on from one generation to the next.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Like a gene, a meme is therefore a replicator, propagating itself across populations through ‘a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.’’