The word "decant" for clone generation

Question

Where did the meaning "To remove a clone from its chamber, vat, or artificial womb" (wiktionary) for the word decant originate? The wiktionary entry does not cite an usage and the OED entry it references only contains other (related) meanings.

I noticed this use in the Foundation TV Series but from the context I do not expect Asimov's books to be the source. In any case the word decant does not seem to appear in Forward the Foundation. Google provides a mix of results, partially obscured by the use of clone in winemaking (?). In particular I see a reference to clone troopers being decanted but it's not clear that that's where the use originates.

Answer 1

In Huxley's 1932 Brave New World the term "decant" is used. In fact, in that society, the nursery rhyme "Bye baby Bunting" is altered to "Bye baby Banting, soon you'll need decanting."

Given how early this book is and how well-known, it seems likely that this metaphoric use of "decant" (to "pour out" a clone as if it were a drink) originates from and became popular due to, this book.

Note that while the children that are produced in Brave New Worlds are not duplicates of particular adults (the modern SF meaning of "clones"), they are duplicates (clones) of an original zygote:

One egg, one embryo, one adult — normality. But a bokanov­skified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress.

‘Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!’ The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. ‘You really know where you are. For the first time in history.’ He quoted the planetary motto. ‘Community, Identity, Stability.’ Grand words. ‘If we could bokanovskify indefi­nitely the whole problem would be solved.’

Answer 2

Aldous Huxley uses the word in "Brave New World", which was published in 1932. This is about industrial-scaled in vitro fertilization rather than cloning in the strict sense (1), but the process described is pretty similar to how industrial cloning is described later - removing grown people from vats - so this seems applicable.

"We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future …"

(1) The novel describes a fictional process to divide a fertilized egg into genetically identical embryos, so maybe this counts as a crude form on cloning.

Answer 3

The first reference I recall to "decant" in reference to a human wasn't directly relative to cloning. In Heinlein's Time Enough for Love (1973) that word is used in reference to an in vitro gestated fetus being removed from the tank (equivalent to "born") -- both for zygotes derived from actual sex cells and for clones.