robotn.²

Brit.

/ˈrəʊbɒt/, U.S.

/ˈroʊˌbɑt/,

/ˈroʊbət/

Origin: A borrowing from Czech. Etymon: Czech robot.

Etymology: < Czech robot (1920 in R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots, a play by Karel Čapek (1890–1938), Czech author) < robota forced labour, drudgery (see robot n.¹). Compare French robot (1924) and (with German -er -er suffix¹) German Roboter (1922). Compare earlier robot n.¹According to Karel Čapek, the word was suggested to him by his brother Josef (1887–1945) as an alternative to his original intention of coining a word ultimately < classical Latin labor labour n. in this sense. Robot occurs as though a pre-existing English word in the title and text of Čapek's (Czech) play: see quot. 1920 at sense 1a. The play was first performed in an English translation in New York in 1922.

a. Chiefly Science Fiction. An intelligent artificial being typically made of metal and resembling in some way a human or other animal.Originally used in a Czech-language play by Karel Čapek (see quot. 1920) with reference to mass-produced workers assembled from artificially synthesized organic material.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > science fiction, etc. > [noun] > character in

Alpha Centaurian1931

centaurian1931

slan1940

robot1942

droid1952

bot1969

fembot1976

1920 K. Čapek R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots 7 (stage direction) Ústřední kancelář továrny [= Central office of the factory] Rossum's Universal Robots.

1922 Dial Apr. 408 The Robots, logical in everything, exterminate the human race until only one man is left.

1922 Ogden (Utah) Times-Examiner 24 Dec. 15/4 Mildred Pierce was an essential character actor in ‘Doctor Jack’ and ‘Grandma's Boy’, but in his other comedies, Harold Lloyd could well have had a robot in her place.

1923 P. Selver tr. K. Capek R.U.R. 28 You see..the Robots have no interest in life. They have no enjoyments.

1942 I. Asimov in Astounding Sci.-Fiction Mar. 100/1 Let's start with the three fundamental rules of Robotics—the three rules that are built most deeply into a robot's positronic brain.

1958 Spectator 19 Sept. 379/1 Today SF must be more than a blood-and-sex day~dream spattered with words like androids (robots made of flesh and bone).

1969 I. Opie & P. Opie Children's Games xii. 340 ‘They pretend to be robots gone mad,’ reports a headmaster.

1987 N. Spinrad Little Heroes (1989) 599 A shrieking of near supersonic pain like a thousand robot cats being fed through a tree chipper.

2005 N.Y. Mag. 13 June 112/2 He's a robot with feelings, and like Blade Runner 's replicants and A.I. 's mechas, he sets out to meet his maker.

b. figurative. A person who acts mechanically or without emotion.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > will > intention > unintentional or unplanned character > [noun] > unintentional or involuntary quality > automatic or mechanical quality > person acting with

machina1612

machine1676

golem1732

man-machine1749

robot1923

droid1980

1923 Westm. Gaz. 22 June 7/5 Mr. G. Bernard Shaw defined Robots as persons all of whose activities were imposed on them.

1926 C. E. M. Joad Babbitt Warren 82 Robots live by standardization.

1943 J. B. Priestley Daylight on Sat. ix. 55 I thought it would be better having a fairly intelligent..girl instead of one of these little office robots.

1971 Southern Illinoisan 26 Aug. 4/5 Teachers and students alike could be turned into robots if the efforts to measure everything get out of hand.

1995 W. Deverell Street Legal xix. 208 They're robots, most of them social workers, bureaucrats with initials behind their names.

1996 C. Higson Getting Rid of Mr Kitchen xx. 215 I don't know what reserves of energy I was working off, I was a robot, a headless fucking chicken.

2. A machine capable of automatically carrying out a complex series of movements, esp. one which is programmable.

ΘΚΠ

society > occupation and work > equipment > machine > types of machine generally > [noun] > automatic > automaton or robot

self-mover1570

self-moving1570

automa1631

automatea1649

android1728

golem1732

automaton1922

robot1927

mechanoid1947

robotic1951

droid1952

bot1969

mecha1986

1927 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 17 Oct. 8/1 A ‘televocal’ electrical robot, which..can answer the telephone, tell the height of water in a reservoir, open doors, switch on lights and perform other mechanical services.

1928 Daily News & Westm. Gaz. 20 Apr. 11/4 The latest..Rotary Press, a veritable Robot in the complicated work it performs night after night without hitch.

1943 C. Crow Great Amer. Customer (ed. 3) 179 Vines fresh..are fed into the robot which hulls the peas, grades them as to size, and sends them on their way to the cooker.

1979 Daily Tel. 7 Nov. 6/8 The British Robot Association believes between 6,000 and 7,000 robots were in use world-wide in industry last year.

2004 J. L. Jones Robot Programming 265 If the robot encounters a pushable object when no light is visible, Dark-push triggers.

3. An automatic traffic light. Also more fully traffic robot. Now South African.

ΘΚΠ

society > travel > transport > transport or conveyance in a vehicle > vehicular traffic > [noun] > traffic control > traffic lights

traffic signal1893

traffic light1913

signal1915

light1925

robot1929

1928 Western Gaz. (Yeovil, Somerset, Eng.) 23 Mar. 11/4 (heading) Robot Policeman... The first electrical device to be installed in Great Britain for the direction of street traffic at cross-roads came into operation at Leeds on Friday.]

1929 Manitoba (Winnipeg) Free Press 17 Jan. 1/4 The shadow of the vehicle..awakens the robot to electronic action.

1931 Evening Standard 5 Aug. 2/1 (heading) Traffic ‘Robots’ in the City.

1958 Star (Johannesburg) 16 Dec. 6/7 Johannesburg drivers..want to turn right or left while pedestrians, with the robot in their favour, are crossing.

1979 M. Matshoba Call me not Man 141 We turned at the robots to ascend the highway.

2005 A. Brown Coldsleep Lullaby xx. 230 Du Preez had been drinking. He drove through a red robot.

2017 P. Schonstein Skyline xviii. 82 There is stillness and heat and..disgusting traffic. He drops me at Skyline, at the red robot.

4. A flying bomb, esp. one used by German forces during the Second World War (1939–45); a doodlebug. Cf. robot bomb n. at Compounds 2. Now historical.

ΘΚΠ

society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > flying

rocket bomb1883

chase me, Charley1906

robot plane1929

robot bomb1934

robot1940

buzz-bomb1944

doodlebug1944

flying bomb1944

robomb1944

V-bomb1944

V-11944

V-21944

1940 Pop. Mech. Dec. 806/2 The radio control signals would be received by the robot by means of a dipole antenna in the tail.

1944 Daily Tel. 11 July 1/5 Many of the robots launched against England on Sunday night finished up in the sea.

1944 J. Lees-Milne Diary 1 July in Prophesying Peace (1977) 86 From here Jamesey saw his first robot.

1960 P. Wykeham Fighter Command xix. 258 The German bomber pilots stayed on the ground, and the robots took over.

2000 S. Tanner Refuge from Reich xiv. 216 The robots and rockets..provided a means to bomb the enemy without risking the lives of airmen.

5. Computing. More fully software robot. A program for automatically performing a task (esp. on the internet) without continuous human intervention; spec. one used by an internet search engine for indexing the contents and relationships of web pages (cf. spider n. Additions).

ΚΠ

1985 N.Y. Times 21 Nov. d2/1 A $30 million to $50 million project to design ‘software robots’ that will perform many of the tasks..that the Macintosh still leaves to humans.

1994 Guardian (Nexis) 1 Dec. (OnLine section) 5 What we need is some kind of automated census of the Web: some software robots that tirelessly wander along every link just to see what's there.

1999 Live Rocketry Chat Room on IRC (EFNet) in rec.models.rockets (Usenet newsgroup) 1 Dec. There is a robot that lives on the [IRC] channel named ‘jpunix’ that takes care of administrative issues on the channel such as profanity and channel abuse.

2003 D. A. Karp Windows XP Annoyances vii. 343 So-called robots, programs that are designed to scan large groups of IP addresses, looking for vulnerabilities. The motive for such a program can be..the hijacking of computers for the purpose of distributing spam.

2008 Hillingdon Times (Nexis) 29 Sept. Search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully.

Compounds

C1.

a. General attributive.

robot army n.

ΚΠ

1922 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 15 Oct. iii. 12/5 The Robot army marches upon the house in which the last survivors wait.

2001 C. P. Mitchell Guide Apoc. Cinema 223 They escape through the sewer and double back behind the lines of the robot army.

robot brain n.

ΚΠ

1934 Sci. News Let. 10 Nov. 297/1 A new mechanical robot ‘brain’ capable of solving what mathematicians call ‘simultaneous equations’ is working for science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1954 Britannica Bk. of Year 637/2 Radar-Brain, a device used to guide supersonic missiles from the ground, and Robot-Brain, a similar apparatus built into the missile.

2008 N.Y. Sun (Nexis) 19 May 8 After the computer processes the images, it sends commands to the robot brain.

robot land n.

ΚΠ

1936 Jrnl. Social Philos. 2 18 The mechanical interrelations and continuities of Robotland.

1960 A. Koestler Lotus & Robot ii. vi. 173 The robotland reflected in the mirror makes us shudder.

2004 A. Kessler Running Money vii. 243 ‘We are entering robot land.’ A bunch of robots were swinging around and blasting giant welding arcs..onto the body of..a Pontiac Vibe.

robot masses n.

ΚΠ

a1930 D. H. Lawrence Compl. Poems (1993) 639 The mechanical impulse for money and motor-cars which rules the robot-classes and the robot-masses, now.

2005 Tulsa (Okla.) World (Nexis) 11 Mar. Rodney leads a rebellion of the robot masses against the bottom-line tyranny of big business.

robot-type adj.

ΚΠ

1944 Ames (Iowa) Daily Tribune 14 Nov. 2/2 The Monsanto company is building an $8,000,000,000 plant..for the production of robot-type bombs.

1959 H. Barnes Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 177 It is convenient to mount a Robot-type camera in a watertight case, usually fastened to a pole.

1997 K. Warwick March of Machines iii. 41 Robot-type machines come in a number of forms.

b. Appositive.

robot astronaut n.

ΚΠ

1959 Victoria (Texas) Advocate 26 Apr. 4 a/2 The war of the near future probably will have to be fought entirely by robot astronauts.

1961 Daily Tel. 14 Sept. 1/4 Technicians at Cape Canaveral, Florida, successfully sent a Project Mercury space capsule carrying a robot astronaut and recovered it from the Atlantic.

2002 S. Choron & H. Choron All-new Bk. Lists for Kids 318 A robot astronaut gone berserk battles an outer space queen and an army of midgets.

robot clerk n.

ΚΠ

1928 Daily Express 8 June 3/2 A new automatic selling machine, described as the ‘Robot clerk’, which will say ‘Thank you’ and give change, will replace the present automatic machines.

2007 Nikkei Weekly (Japan) (Nexis) 17 Dec. Aeon Co. decided to introduce the mechanical helper after learning that many of its customers liked the idea of robot clerks.

robot pilot n.

ΚΠ

1930 Aberdeen Press & Jrnl. 31 Mar. 7/3 One of these robot-pilots has been fitted to a big twin-engined Supermarine Napier flying boat.

1951 A. Y. Bramble Air-plane Flight xv. 247 Automatic control or ‘robot-pilot’ is really a piece of control mechanism rather than an instrument as generally understood.

2005 D. Hambling Weapons Grade xiv. 315 A robot pilot had no family at home, could not be paraded in front of the cameras and could not give away any secrets.

robot satellite n.

ΚΠ

1954 H. L. Goodwin Sci. Bk. Space Travel xiii. 138 The chances are that a robot satellite would not be planned for long operation.

2005 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) (Nexis) 24 Apr. 37 A 135-page report delivered by Lanzerotti's team last year favored a manned rescue mission over the use of a robot satellite.

robot worker n.

ΚΠ

1933 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 21 Feb. 31/3 The deadly monotony of the ‘robot’ worker.

1978 Times 14 Mar. 14/5 A Finnish company..has designed and built 50 ‘robot’ workers to handle some assembly operations.

2008 R. Stefoff Robots viii. 117 If robot workers give us more and more free time, how will we fill it?

c. Objective.

robot-maker n.

ΚΠ

1932 Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) 22 June 1/5 The engineer..is the arch backstage manipulator of the age—whether hero or villain.., robot maker or ignorer of souls.

1982 Sci. News 122 299/1 The robot maker has a guaranteed market for its initial prototype machines.

2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 4 Dec. d3/5 A blogging community of do-it-yourself-ers, robot-makers, food hackers and techno-geeks.

d. Instrumental.

robot-controlled adj.

ΚΠ

1933 Daily Capital News (Jefferson City, Missouri) 1 June 1/5 The first transcontinental non-stop flight in a robot controlled airplane will be attempted Friday.

1964 Ann. Reg. 1963 394 London transport had also developed a robot-controlled underground train.

1993 H. Harrison Stainless Steel Visions 189 The Mosaic torpedo is a weapon of space war, in reality a robot-controlled spaceship.

robot-run adj.

ΚΠ

1933 Helena (Montana) Independent 8 Jan. 16 (caption) A new process for manufacturing silk out of grass fibre and pigs' blood in a robot run factory.

1958 I. Asimov Naked Sun i. 11 Fear of open spaces that barred them from the robot-run farming and mining areas of their own planet.

2007 Synthesis/Regeneration (Nexis) 1 Jan. In a robot-run economy the total of all wages would be zero.

C2.

robot bomb n. a remote-controlled bomb; a flying bomb, esp. one used by German forces during the Second World War (1939–45).

ΘΚΠ

society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > flying

rocket bomb1883

chase me, Charley1906

robot plane1929

robot bomb1934

robot1940

buzz-bomb1944

doodlebug1944

flying bomb1944

robomb1944

V-bomb1944

V-11944

V-21944

1934 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 8 Nov. 10/6 Robot airplanes carrying robot bombs.., death rays and death gases..—these are the order of the day for the next war.

1944 N.Y. Times 25 June 4 e/1 (heading) Germans' robot bomb is a potential menace.

1945 G. Millar Maquis xiv. 292 A false report that a certain factory there was making parts for the robot bombs that the Germans had begun to send to London.

2001 S. Pelletière America's Oil Wars iv. 115 Cruise missiles..effectively are robot bombs.

robot petrol station n. British rare a (hypothetical) unmanned self-service petrol station.

ΚΠ

1972 Times 9 Nov. 35/1 (heading) Robot petrol stations to open soon.

1995 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 28 Aug. Robot petrol stations could be set up in the Highlands..at a cost of about £15,000 each.

robot plane n. a pilotless aircraft; spec. a flying bomb.

ΘΚΠ

society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > flying

rocket bomb1883

chase me, Charley1906

robot plane1929

robot bomb1934

robot1940

buzz-bomb1944

doodlebug1944

flying bomb1944

robomb1944

V-bomb1944

V-11944

V-21944

1929 Kokomo (Indiana) Daily Tribune 26 July 15/6 To give instructions to the robot plane, all that is necessary is to press the right button.

1935 Sun (Baltimore) 18 July 2/6 King George today saw the British fleet repel an attack by robot planes. The feature of the war game was the fight between the new aircraft guns on the battleship and the radio-controlled ‘queen bee’ flying machines.

1944 J. Lees-Milne Diary 29 June in Prophesying Peace (1977) 84 Dame Una made stately preparations to dive under the table at the first sound of a robot plane.

2006 Prospect Aug. 20/1 We also need a delivery system, such as aeroplanes (or robot planes, misleadingly termed ‘cruise missiles’).

robot roost n. U.S. (now rare) a place for the storage of robot bombs.

ΚΠ

1944 Sun (Baltimore) 20 June 1/3 United States heavy bombers struck twice today at the robot roost around Pas de Calais.

1944 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 7 Nov. 1/7 With the loss of their channel robot roosts, the Germans have switched almost entirely now to launching the flying bombs from aircraft over the North Sea.

robot station n. (a) a station or area occupied by automated machinery; (b) = robot petrol station n.

ΚΠ

1928 Courier News (Blytheville, Arkansas) 25 Sept. 4/1 The New York Edison Co. recently put a new ‘robot station’ into operation. This station is operated without any human labour.

1972 Times 9 Nov. 35/1 The two trends now being combined to produce what BP..calls robot stations, namely self-service and automatic money acceptance.

2008 Plant Engin. (Nexis) 15 June 34 Tool changers located adjacent to each robot station can hold several sets of tooling—one for each vehicle model that the Chrysler plant is now capable of running.

robot system n. a system involving robots or automatic equipment likened to a robot.

ΚΠ

1933 Hispania 16 90 Even the robot can't work unless someone pushes the button. If the American Association of Teachers of Spanish can be the power to put into useful and sane motion the robot system which the would-be educators are making..the mechanism will not prove a Frankenstein.

1953 Sci. News Let. 13 June 360/3 The robot system will keep pushing these rods in and out so that the precise amount of control desired is obtained.

2003 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 361 2215 It is also robust to changes in the robot system, with changing joint stiffnesses..or added weights.

robot teacher n. a machine fulfilling some of the functions of a teacher; an electronic teaching aid.

ΚΠ

1933 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 16 Jan. 1/2 (heading) Robot teacher here! Instructor invents device for grading test papers.

1936 Times 3 Jan. 7/4 School broadcasts were not intended to introduce ‘robot’ teachers into schools.

1988 C. J. Hamelink Technol. Gamble i. 10 The most common application is still the ‘robot teacher’ for drilling and reviewing.

robot train n. a remotely operated driverless train.

ΚΠ

1930 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 9 May 28 c/3 (heading) Robot trains speed mail in London's tiny subway.

1963 Daily Tel. 9 Apr. 17/4 (heading) Robot train tested with passengers.

2004 Roanoke (Va.) Times (Nexis) 19 Sept. Norfolk Southern hails robot trains as a high-tech way to enhance safety, increase efficiency and save money.

Derivatives

roboˈtesque adj. resembling or suggestive of a robot.

ΚΠ

1927 Daily Express 11 Mar. 6/4 ‘Robotesque’ movements..acquire a singular menace and significance in the screen medium.

1986 Explorer (Cleveland Mus. Nat. Hist.) Spring 17/1 ‘Obviously a major malfunction…’ These words were delivered in unemotional, robotesque monotone by the Johnson Space Center commentator.

2007 H. Mathis Rock your Stars 313 A futuristic phone headset and other robotesque techno-gadgetry.

roˈbotian adj. of, belonging to, or characteristic of a robot or robots.

ΚΠ

1928 Daily Express 17 Mar. 4/2 A few have their wooden craniums transfixed by bodkins, and some have Robotian hooks instead of hands.

1960 French Rev. 33 298 One of a myriad of books in recent years portraying future society as throttled by robotian existence.

1998 Interview with Dick Tufeld in misc.writing.screenplays (Usenet newsgroup) 11 Apr. I presume what you're looking for is a stiff, mechanical, robotian kind of sound.

ˈroboty adj. relating to or characteristic of a robot; robotic.

ΚΠ

1933 E. E. Cummings eimi 3 Horridly roboty child smothered by ferocious Blau, swinging a ditto balloon at end of wire.

1973 Lebanon (Pa.) Daily Post 9 Aug. 47/4 His promised grace of physical acting became roboty, his style monotonous.

1997 K. Warwick March of Machines iii. 40 When it encounters a wall it turns around and makes strange ‘roboty’ bleeping noises.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

单词	robot
释义	robotn.¹ Brit. /ˈrəʊbɒt/, U.S. /ˈroʊˌbɑt/, /ˈroʊbət/ Origin: A borrowing from German. Etymon: German Robot. Etymology: < German Robot (formerly also †Robat , †Robate ; early 14th cent. in Middle High German as robāt ) < a West Slavonic language, compare Old Czech robota forced labour, hard work (Czech robota forced labour, drudgery), Old Polish robota work, forced labour (Polish robota work), cognate with Old Russian rabota , robota work, forced labour (Russian rabota work), Old Church Slavonic rabota , robota slavery (Bulgarian rabota work) < the Slavonic base of Old Church Slavonic rabŭ , robŭ , Old Russian rab′′ , rob′′ , slave, servant (Russian rab slave), Old Czech rob descendant, heir (Czech rob slave) ( < the same Indo-European base as arveth adj. and perhaps erf n.¹) + a suffix forming nouns. Compare robot n.² A central European system of serfdom, by which a tenant's rent was paid in forced labour or service. Now historical.The system was abolished in the Austrian Empire in 1848. ΚΠ 1839 J. Paget Hungary & Transylvania I. xi. 305 The system of rent by robot or forced labour..is a direct premium on idleness. 1853 W. K. Kelly tr. Genesis Austrian Revol. in Hist. House of Austria III. iii. 117 The ‘Robot’ was a customary labour-rent, in payment of which the peasants worked for their lords a certain number of days in the year, according to the extent of the peasant-lands which they held and cultivated for themselves. 1855 N. Brit. Rev. Feb. 165/2 The Austrian Government has suppressed the robot, or personal service due to me from my tenants. 1900 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 8 493 There were other burdens to be borne, but that which economically pressed most heavily upon the peasant was the personal service, or ‘robot’. 1945 Agric. Hist. 19 98/2 The Robot had been limited in 1800 by the Ragusa government to ninety days a year, and minimum standards had been set for the keeping of the peasant during this period. 1990 A. Sked in B. Waller Themes in Mod. European Hist. v. 149 The latest work by economic historians indicates that neither the abolition of the robot nor of the customs border with Hungary made any appreciable difference to the monarchy's economy. This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online June 2022). robotn.² Brit. /ˈrəʊbɒt/, U.S. /ˈroʊˌbɑt/, /ˈroʊbət/ Origin: A borrowing from Czech. Etymon: Czech robot. Etymology: < Czech robot (1920 in R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots, a play by Karel Čapek (1890–1938), Czech author) < robota forced labour, drudgery (see robot n.¹). Compare French robot (1924) and (with German -er -er suffix¹) German Roboter (1922). Compare earlier robot n.¹According to Karel Čapek, the word was suggested to him by his brother Josef (1887–1945) as an alternative to his original intention of coining a word ultimately < classical Latin labor labour n. in this sense. Robot occurs as though a pre-existing English word in the title and text of Čapek's (Czech) play: see quot. 1920 at sense 1a. The play was first performed in an English translation in New York in 1922. 1. a. Chiefly Science Fiction. An intelligent artificial being typically made of metal and resembling in some way a human or other animal.Originally used in a Czech-language play by Karel Čapek (see quot. 1920) with reference to mass-produced workers assembled from artificially synthesized organic material. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > science fiction, etc. > [noun] > character in Alpha Centaurian1931 centaurian1931 slan1940 robot1942 droid1952 bot1969 fembot1976 1920 K. Čapek R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots 7 (stage direction) Ústřední kancelář továrny [= Central office of the factory] Rossum's Universal Robots. 1922 Dial Apr. 408 The Robots, logical in everything, exterminate the human race until only one man is left. 1922 Ogden (Utah) Times-Examiner 24 Dec. 15/4 Mildred Pierce was an essential character actor in ‘Doctor Jack’ and ‘Grandma's Boy’, but in his other comedies, Harold Lloyd could well have had a robot in her place. 1923 P. Selver tr. K. Capek R.U.R. 28 You see..the Robots have no interest in life. They have no enjoyments. 1942 I. Asimov in Astounding Sci.-Fiction Mar. 100/1 Let's start with the three fundamental rules of Robotics—the three rules that are built most deeply into a robot's positronic brain. 1958 Spectator 19 Sept. 379/1 Today SF must be more than a blood-and-sex day~dream spattered with words like androids (robots made of flesh and bone). 1969 I. Opie & P. Opie Children's Games xii. 340 ‘They pretend to be robots gone mad,’ reports a headmaster. 1987 N. Spinrad Little Heroes (1989) 599 A shrieking of near supersonic pain like a thousand robot cats being fed through a tree chipper. 2005 N.Y. Mag. 13 June 112/2 He's a robot with feelings, and like Blade Runner 's replicants and A.I. 's mechas, he sets out to meet his maker. b. figurative. A person who acts mechanically or without emotion. ΘΚΠ the mind > will > intention > unintentional or unplanned character > [noun] > unintentional or involuntary quality > automatic or mechanical quality > person acting with machina1612 machine1676 golem1732 man-machine1749 robot1923 droid1980 1923 Westm. Gaz. 22 June 7/5 Mr. G. Bernard Shaw defined Robots as persons all of whose activities were imposed on them. 1926 C. E. M. Joad Babbitt Warren 82 Robots live by standardization. 1943 J. B. Priestley Daylight on Sat. ix. 55 I thought it would be better having a fairly intelligent..girl instead of one of these little office robots. 1971 Southern Illinoisan 26 Aug. 4/5 Teachers and students alike could be turned into robots if the efforts to measure everything get out of hand. 1995 W. Deverell Street Legal xix. 208 They're robots, most of them social workers, bureaucrats with initials behind their names. 1996 C. Higson Getting Rid of Mr Kitchen xx. 215 I don't know what reserves of energy I was working off, I was a robot, a headless fucking chicken. 2. A machine capable of automatically carrying out a complex series of movements, esp. one which is programmable. ΘΚΠ society > occupation and work > equipment > machine > types of machine generally > [noun] > automatic > automaton or robot self-mover1570 self-moving1570 automa1631 automatea1649 android1728 golem1732 automaton1922 robot1927 mechanoid1947 robotic1951 droid1952 bot1969 mecha1986 1927 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 17 Oct. 8/1 A ‘televocal’ electrical robot, which..can answer the telephone, tell the height of water in a reservoir, open doors, switch on lights and perform other mechanical services. 1928 Daily News & Westm. Gaz. 20 Apr. 11/4 The latest..Rotary Press, a veritable Robot in the complicated work it performs night after night without hitch. 1943 C. Crow Great Amer. Customer (ed. 3) 179 Vines fresh..are fed into the robot which hulls the peas, grades them as to size, and sends them on their way to the cooker. 1979 Daily Tel. 7 Nov. 6/8 The British Robot Association believes between 6,000 and 7,000 robots were in use world-wide in industry last year. 2004 J. L. Jones Robot Programming 265 If the robot encounters a pushable object when no light is visible, Dark-push triggers. 3. An automatic traffic light. Also more fully traffic robot. Now South African. ΘΚΠ society > travel > transport > transport or conveyance in a vehicle > vehicular traffic > [noun] > traffic control > traffic lights traffic signal1893 traffic light1913 signal1915 light1925 robot1929 1928 Western Gaz. (Yeovil, Somerset, Eng.) 23 Mar. 11/4 (heading) Robot Policeman... The first electrical device to be installed in Great Britain for the direction of street traffic at cross-roads came into operation at Leeds on Friday.] 1929 Manitoba (Winnipeg) Free Press 17 Jan. 1/4 The shadow of the vehicle..awakens the robot to electronic action. 1931 Evening Standard 5 Aug. 2/1 (heading) Traffic ‘Robots’ in the City. 1958 Star (Johannesburg) 16 Dec. 6/7 Johannesburg drivers..want to turn right or left while pedestrians, with the robot in their favour, are crossing. 1979 M. Matshoba Call me not Man 141 We turned at the robots to ascend the highway. 2005 A. Brown Coldsleep Lullaby xx. 230 Du Preez had been drinking. He drove through a red robot. 2017 P. Schonstein Skyline xviii. 82 There is stillness and heat and..disgusting traffic. He drops me at Skyline, at the red robot. 4. A flying bomb, esp. one used by German forces during the Second World War (1939–45); a doodlebug. Cf. robot bomb n. at Compounds 2. Now historical. ΘΚΠ society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > flying rocket bomb1883 chase me, Charley1906 robot plane1929 robot bomb1934 robot1940 buzz-bomb1944 doodlebug1944 flying bomb1944 robomb1944 V-bomb1944 V-11944 V-21944 1940 Pop. Mech. Dec. 806/2 The radio control signals would be received by the robot by means of a dipole antenna in the tail. 1944 Daily Tel. 11 July 1/5 Many of the robots launched against England on Sunday night finished up in the sea. 1944 J. Lees-Milne Diary 1 July in Prophesying Peace (1977) 86 From here Jamesey saw his first robot. 1960 P. Wykeham Fighter Command xix. 258 The German bomber pilots stayed on the ground, and the robots took over. 2000 S. Tanner Refuge from Reich xiv. 216 The robots and rockets..provided a means to bomb the enemy without risking the lives of airmen. 5. Computing. More fully software robot. A program for automatically performing a task (esp. on the internet) without continuous human intervention; spec. one used by an internet search engine for indexing the contents and relationships of web pages (cf. spider n. Additions). ΚΠ 1985 N.Y. Times 21 Nov. d2/1 A $30 million to $50 million project to design ‘software robots’ that will perform many of the tasks..that the Macintosh still leaves to humans. 1994 Guardian (Nexis) 1 Dec. (OnLine section) 5 What we need is some kind of automated census of the Web: some software robots that tirelessly wander along every link just to see what's there. 1999 Live Rocketry Chat Room on IRC (EFNet) in rec.models.rockets (Usenet newsgroup) 1 Dec. There is a robot that lives on the [IRC] channel named ‘jpunix’ that takes care of administrative issues on the channel such as profanity and channel abuse. 2003 D. A. Karp Windows XP Annoyances vii. 343 So-called robots, programs that are designed to scan large groups of IP addresses, looking for vulnerabilities. The motive for such a program can be..the hijacking of computers for the purpose of distributing spam. 2008 Hillingdon Times (Nexis) 29 Sept. Search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully. Compounds C1. a. General attributive. robot army n. ΚΠ 1922 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 15 Oct. iii. 12/5 The Robot army marches upon the house in which the last survivors wait. 2001 C. P. Mitchell Guide Apoc. Cinema 223 They escape through the sewer and double back behind the lines of the robot army. robot brain n. ΚΠ 1934 Sci. News Let. 10 Nov. 297/1 A new mechanical robot ‘brain’ capable of solving what mathematicians call ‘simultaneous equations’ is working for science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1954 Britannica Bk. of Year 637/2 Radar-Brain, a device used to guide supersonic missiles from the ground, and Robot-Brain, a similar apparatus built into the missile. 2008 N.Y. Sun (Nexis) 19 May 8 After the computer processes the images, it sends commands to the robot brain. robot land n. ΚΠ 1936 Jrnl. Social Philos. 2 18 The mechanical interrelations and continuities of Robotland. 1960 A. Koestler Lotus & Robot ii. vi. 173 The robotland reflected in the mirror makes us shudder. 2004 A. Kessler Running Money vii. 243 ‘We are entering robot land.’ A bunch of robots were swinging around and blasting giant welding arcs..onto the body of..a Pontiac Vibe. robot masses n. ΚΠ a1930 D. H. Lawrence Compl. Poems (1993) 639 The mechanical impulse for money and motor-cars which rules the robot-classes and the robot-masses, now. 2005 Tulsa (Okla.) World (Nexis) 11 Mar. Rodney leads a rebellion of the robot masses against the bottom-line tyranny of big business. robot-type adj. ΚΠ 1944 Ames (Iowa) Daily Tribune 14 Nov. 2/2 The Monsanto company is building an $8,000,000,000 plant..for the production of robot-type bombs. 1959 H. Barnes Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 177 It is convenient to mount a Robot-type camera in a watertight case, usually fastened to a pole. 1997 K. Warwick March of Machines iii. 41 Robot-type machines come in a number of forms. b. Appositive. robot astronaut n. ΚΠ 1959 Victoria (Texas) Advocate 26 Apr. 4 a/2 The war of the near future probably will have to be fought entirely by robot astronauts. 1961 Daily Tel. 14 Sept. 1/4 Technicians at Cape Canaveral, Florida, successfully sent a Project Mercury space capsule carrying a robot astronaut and recovered it from the Atlantic. 2002 S. Choron & H. Choron All-new Bk. Lists for Kids 318 A robot astronaut gone berserk battles an outer space queen and an army of midgets. robot clerk n. ΚΠ 1928 Daily Express 8 June 3/2 A new automatic selling machine, described as the ‘Robot clerk’, which will say ‘Thank you’ and give change, will replace the present automatic machines. 2007 Nikkei Weekly (Japan) (Nexis) 17 Dec. Aeon Co. decided to introduce the mechanical helper after learning that many of its customers liked the idea of robot clerks. robot pilot n. ΚΠ 1930 Aberdeen Press & Jrnl. 31 Mar. 7/3 One of these robot-pilots has been fitted to a big twin-engined Supermarine Napier flying boat. 1951 A. Y. Bramble Air-plane Flight xv. 247 Automatic control or ‘robot-pilot’ is really a piece of control mechanism rather than an instrument as generally understood. 2005 D. Hambling Weapons Grade xiv. 315 A robot pilot had no family at home, could not be paraded in front of the cameras and could not give away any secrets. robot satellite n. ΚΠ 1954 H. L. Goodwin Sci. Bk. Space Travel xiii. 138 The chances are that a robot satellite would not be planned for long operation. 2005 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) (Nexis) 24 Apr. 37 A 135-page report delivered by Lanzerotti's team last year favored a manned rescue mission over the use of a robot satellite. robot worker n. ΚΠ 1933 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 21 Feb. 31/3 The deadly monotony of the ‘robot’ worker. 1978 Times 14 Mar. 14/5 A Finnish company..has designed and built 50 ‘robot’ workers to handle some assembly operations. 2008 R. Stefoff Robots viii. 117 If robot workers give us more and more free time, how will we fill it? c. Objective. robot-maker n. ΚΠ 1932 Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) 22 June 1/5 The engineer..is the arch backstage manipulator of the age—whether hero or villain.., robot maker or ignorer of souls. 1982 Sci. News 122 299/1 The robot maker has a guaranteed market for its initial prototype machines. 2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 4 Dec. d3/5 A blogging community of do-it-yourself-ers, robot-makers, food hackers and techno-geeks. d. Instrumental. robot-controlled adj. ΚΠ 1933 Daily Capital News (Jefferson City, Missouri) 1 June 1/5 The first transcontinental non-stop flight in a robot controlled airplane will be attempted Friday. 1964 Ann. Reg. 1963 394 London transport had also developed a robot-controlled underground train. 1993 H. Harrison Stainless Steel Visions 189 The Mosaic torpedo is a weapon of space war, in reality a robot-controlled spaceship. robot-run adj. ΚΠ 1933 Helena (Montana) Independent 8 Jan. 16 (caption) A new process for manufacturing silk out of grass fibre and pigs' blood in a robot run factory. 1958 I. Asimov Naked Sun i. 11 Fear of open spaces that barred them from the robot-run farming and mining areas of their own planet. 2007 Synthesis/Regeneration (Nexis) 1 Jan. In a robot-run economy the total of all wages would be zero. C2. robot bomb n. a remote-controlled bomb; a flying bomb, esp. one used by German forces during the Second World War (1939–45). ΘΚΠ society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > flying rocket bomb1883 chase me, Charley1906 robot plane1929 robot bomb1934 robot1940 buzz-bomb1944 doodlebug1944 flying bomb1944 robomb1944 V-bomb1944 V-11944 V-21944 1934 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 8 Nov. 10/6 Robot airplanes carrying robot bombs.., death rays and death gases..—these are the order of the day for the next war. 1944 N.Y. Times 25 June 4 e/1 (heading) Germans' robot bomb is a potential menace. 1945 G. Millar Maquis xiv. 292 A false report that a certain factory there was making parts for the robot bombs that the Germans had begun to send to London. 2001 S. Pelletière America's Oil Wars iv. 115 Cruise missiles..effectively are robot bombs. robot petrol station n. British rare a (hypothetical) unmanned self-service petrol station. ΚΠ 1972 Times 9 Nov. 35/1 (heading) Robot petrol stations to open soon. 1995 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 28 Aug. Robot petrol stations could be set up in the Highlands..at a cost of about £15,000 each. robot plane n. a pilotless aircraft; spec. a flying bomb. ΘΚΠ society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > flying rocket bomb1883 chase me, Charley1906 robot plane1929 robot bomb1934 robot1940 buzz-bomb1944 doodlebug1944 flying bomb1944 robomb1944 V-bomb1944 V-11944 V-21944 1929 Kokomo (Indiana) Daily Tribune 26 July 15/6 To give instructions to the robot plane, all that is necessary is to press the right button. 1935 Sun (Baltimore) 18 July 2/6 King George today saw the British fleet repel an attack by robot planes. The feature of the war game was the fight between the new aircraft guns on the battleship and the radio-controlled ‘queen bee’ flying machines. 1944 J. Lees-Milne Diary 29 June in Prophesying Peace (1977) 84 Dame Una made stately preparations to dive under the table at the first sound of a robot plane. 2006 Prospect Aug. 20/1 We also need a delivery system, such as aeroplanes (or robot planes, misleadingly termed ‘cruise missiles’). robot roost n. U.S. (now rare) a place for the storage of robot bombs. ΚΠ 1944 Sun (Baltimore) 20 June 1/3 United States heavy bombers struck twice today at the robot roost around Pas de Calais. 1944 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 7 Nov. 1/7 With the loss of their channel robot roosts, the Germans have switched almost entirely now to launching the flying bombs from aircraft over the North Sea. robot station n. (a) a station or area occupied by automated machinery; (b) = robot petrol station n. ΚΠ 1928 Courier News (Blytheville, Arkansas) 25 Sept. 4/1 The New York Edison Co. recently put a new ‘robot station’ into operation. This station is operated without any human labour. 1972 Times 9 Nov. 35/1 The two trends now being combined to produce what BP..calls robot stations, namely self-service and automatic money acceptance. 2008 Plant Engin. (Nexis) 15 June 34 Tool changers located adjacent to each robot station can hold several sets of tooling—one for each vehicle model that the Chrysler plant is now capable of running. robot system n. a system involving robots or automatic equipment likened to a robot. ΚΠ 1933 Hispania 16 90 Even the robot can't work unless someone pushes the button. If the American Association of Teachers of Spanish can be the power to put into useful and sane motion the robot system which the would-be educators are making..the mechanism will not prove a Frankenstein. 1953 Sci. News Let. 13 June 360/3 The robot system will keep pushing these rods in and out so that the precise amount of control desired is obtained. 2003 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 361 2215 It is also robust to changes in the robot system, with changing joint stiffnesses..or added weights. robot teacher n. a machine fulfilling some of the functions of a teacher; an electronic teaching aid. ΚΠ 1933 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 16 Jan. 1/2 (heading) Robot teacher here! Instructor invents device for grading test papers. 1936 Times 3 Jan. 7/4 School broadcasts were not intended to introduce ‘robot’ teachers into schools. 1988 C. J. Hamelink Technol. Gamble i. 10 The most common application is still the ‘robot teacher’ for drilling and reviewing. robot train n. a remotely operated driverless train. ΚΠ 1930 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 9 May 28 c/3 (heading) Robot trains speed mail in London's tiny subway. 1963 Daily Tel. 9 Apr. 17/4 (heading) Robot train tested with passengers. 2004 Roanoke (Va.) Times (Nexis) 19 Sept. Norfolk Southern hails robot trains as a high-tech way to enhance safety, increase efficiency and save money. Derivatives roboˈtesque adj. resembling or suggestive of a robot. ΚΠ 1927 Daily Express 11 Mar. 6/4 ‘Robotesque’ movements..acquire a singular menace and significance in the screen medium. 1986 Explorer (Cleveland Mus. Nat. Hist.) Spring 17/1 ‘Obviously a major malfunction…’ These words were delivered in unemotional, robotesque monotone by the Johnson Space Center commentator. 2007 H. Mathis Rock your Stars 313 A futuristic phone headset and other robotesque techno-gadgetry. roˈbotian adj. of, belonging to, or characteristic of a robot or robots. ΚΠ 1928 Daily Express 17 Mar. 4/2 A few have their wooden craniums transfixed by bodkins, and some have Robotian hooks instead of hands. 1960 French Rev. 33 298 One of a myriad of books in recent years portraying future society as throttled by robotian existence. 1998 Interview with Dick Tufeld in misc.writing.screenplays (Usenet newsgroup) 11 Apr. I presume what you're looking for is a stiff, mechanical, robotian kind of sound. ˈroboty adj. relating to or characteristic of a robot; robotic. ΚΠ 1933 E. E. Cummings eimi 3 Horridly roboty child smothered by ferocious Blau, swinging a ditto balloon at end of wire. 1973 Lebanon (Pa.) Daily Post 9 Aug. 47/4 His promised grace of physical acting became roboty, his style monotonous. 1997 K. Warwick March of Machines iii. 40 When it encounters a wall it turns around and makes strange ‘roboty’ bleeping noises. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022). < n.¹1839n.²1920
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robotn.1

robotn.2

Compounds

Derivatives

robotn.¹

robotn.²