Where does the name "Ansible" come from?

From science fiction: Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word "ansible" in her 1966 novel Rocannon's World for a device that communicates instantly across interstellar distances.

In Le Guin's Hainish books an ansible lets people talk across light-years with no delay, which is useful when your spaceships are slower than light. The word was picked up by other authors (Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game uses it too) and became a standard sci-fi term.

The name fits the tool: Ansible's job is to send instructions from one central place to many distant machines at once, and have them all act on them.

Go deeper:

• Rocannon's World (Ursula K. Le Guin official site) — the author's own page for the 1966 novel, noting it is where she coined "ansible".
• Ansible (Wikipedia) — how the fictional device spread from Le Guin to Card and other sci-fi writers.