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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl

Android  
  A synthetic being having the form of a human being.  

This is probably the first use of the word 'android' in the era of science fiction.

"The traffic that brought him such enormous wealth was the production and sale of androids...

Eldo Arrynu," amplified Jay Kalam, "had come upon the secret of synthetic life. He generated artificial cells, and propagated them in nutrient media, controlling development by radiological and biochemical means."

Technovelgy from The Cometeers, by Jack Williamson.
Published by Street and Smith in 1936
Additional resources -

Consider other uses of the word "android", for example the description of the Nexus-6 Brain in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968):

The Nexus-6 android types, Rick reflected, surpassed several classes of human specials in terms of intelligence. In other words, androids equipped with the new Nexus-6 brain unit had from a sort of rough pragmatic standpoint evolved beyond a major - but inferior - segment of mankind...

Or Robert Silverberg in Tower of Glass (1970):

He was in total communion with the computer, making use of all its sensors, scanners and terminals. Why go through the tedious routine of talking to a computer, when it was possible to design an android capable of becoming part of one?

See also androide from Cyclopaedia: or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1727) by Ephraim Chambers, andy from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) by Philip K. Dick and droid from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Cometeers
  More Ideas and Technology by Jack Williamson
  Tech news articles related to The Cometeers
  Tech news articles related to works by Jack Williamson

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