slipstream

Meanings

1. The low-pressure zone immediately following a rapidly moving object, caused by turbulence.
2. A generated advantage which makes forward movement easier.
3. The relative wind experienced as a result of movement through air.
4. The airflow over a propeller-driven aircraft generated by the motion of its propeller(s).
5. A genre of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries.

1. To take advantage of the suction produced by a slipstream by travelling immediately behind the slipstream generator.
2. To incorporate additional software (such as patches) into an existing installer.

Etymology

Compound of slip + stream. Fiction sense coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in 1989.