1901 H. S. Williams in Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 9 578 The enduring power of organisms, expressed by the repetition of like characters in successive fossil forms, is the time quality..to which we must look for the making of a scientific time-scale. In order to isolate this time quality I have proposed to speak of it as the bionic quality or value of the organism. The bionic quality of an organism may, then, be defined as its quality of continuing, and repeating in successive generations, the same morphologic characters.

1961 Sci. Digest Nov. 26/2 The bionic machines and synthetically intelligent systems of tomorrow.

1970 Encycl. Sci. Suppl. (Grolier) 115 In building a submarine, designers wish to determine the most efficient shape for the hull. The bionic approach..consists of studying organisms.

1974 Naples (Florida) Daily News 28 July e4/1 Is there any truth to the rumor that Lee Majors is really a bionic man?

1979 Daily Tel. 27 Aug. 3/1 ‘Bionic’ racehorses—with carbon fibre implants in injured tendons—are expected to compete in this year's National Hunt season.

1987 Sci. News 26 Sept. 195/2 The mass production of synthetic red cells is one of several approaches now being pursued by scientists in an effort to develop a bionic blood.

1994 Amer. Heart Jrnl. 128 1058/2 Patients with implantable medical devices have become bionic men and women, medical pioneers moving into the twenty-first century.

2008 Edmonton (Georgia) Sun (Nexis) 12 Aug. (Sports section) 11 It's a bit tarnished, like a gold medal won by an athlete who is later discovered to have bionic legs.

1976 Newsweek (Internat. ed.) 8 Mar. 34 He strikes some friends and most foes as the first bionic candidate—a clockwork politician who gets up earlier, turns in later, burns more jet fuel, exhausts more shoe leather, squeezes more hands, eyeballs more eyeballs, grins more grins and believes more serenely in himself than anybody in the Democratic class of '76.

1976 Horse & Hound 10 Dec. 77/3 (advt.) Bionic twosome required as groom/gardener and housekeeper.

1977 Private Eye 1 Apr. 16/3 The delightful Ealing home of Margaret Jay,..wife of the bionic Peter.

1984 Washington Post 2 May d1/6 No one in the emergency room seemed to speak English... After two hours, the woman who is frequently described as ‘unflappable’ and ‘bionic’ did the appropriate thing. She sat down and cried.

1998 M. Waites Little Triggers (1999) xxi. 172 After three rings, it was answered by a female voice, dripping with bionic super-efficiency.

2003 J. McManus Positively Fifth St. 4 Lately she's been having the time of her used-to-be-great life. Million-dollar mansion, cute boyfriend, bionic sex, Benz, plus she's keeping her looks, above all.

1967 Bird-Banding 38 169 The use of aims, methods, and prospects of bionically-oriented studies in ornithology is exemplified in the problem of flapping-flight.

1975 Albuquerque (New Mexico) Tribune 30 Aug. a13/2 Steve persuades Oscar (Richard Anderson) to have her repaired bionically.

2004 Chile Pepper Feb. 51/2 The beleaguered family made them bionically and ran them over to Mail Boxes Etc.