robot
(ˈrəʊbɒt)
[Czech, f. robota forced labour; used by Karel C̆apek (1890–1938) in his play R.U.R. (‘Rossum's Universal Robots’) (1920).]
1. a. One of the mechanical men and women in C̆apek's play; hence, a machine (sometimes resembling a human being in appearance) designed to function in place of a living agent, esp. one which carries out a variety of tasks automatically or with a minimum of external impulse.
| 1923 P. Selver tr. C̆apek's R.U.R. 28 You see..the Robots have no interest in life. They have no enjoyments. 1923 Times 9 June 10/5 If Almighty God had populated the world with Robots, legislation of this sort might have been reasonable. 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. 1937 Spectator 23 Apr. 758/1 Men who will go to their doom with the unswerving directness of robots. 1942, etc. [see robotic n. 1]. 1945 Sun (Baltimore) 9 Feb. 6-O/2 A robot, which never forgets, will do the job. 1958 [see android]. 1969 I. & P. Opie Children's Games xii. 340 ‘They pretend to be robots gone mad,’ reports a headmaster. 1976 Sci. Amer. Feb. 77 (caption) Spot-welding robots..are used in assembling the under⁓bodies of Chevrolet Novas. 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. 1980 Times 1 July 19/5 A real robot is programmable; it can be programmed to perform different, and changing tasks. In 1978 Japan put 1,100 playback or programmable robots into its factories. |
b. A person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical; an automaton.
| 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. 1929 C. Connolly Let. in Romantic Friendship (1975) 325 America is..a great youthful boisterous robot. 1943 J. B. Priestley Daylight on Saturday ix. 55, I thought it would be better having a fairly intelligent..girl instead of one of these little office robots. 1977 G. W. H. Lampe God as Spirit ii. 51 The person who is ‘seized’ by the Spirit is thought of as a passive object, temporarily reduced to the status of a robot. |
c. Chiefly
S. Afr. An automatic traffic-signal.
| 1931 Even. Standard 5 Aug. 2/1 (heading) Traffic ‘Robots’ in the City. 1939 Forum (Johannesburg) 4 Feb. 35/1 The Daily Dispatch, East London, is critical of a proposal to fix robots in the town's streets. 1948 H. V. Morton In Search of S. Afr. 17 Another word used in South Africa, but long discontinued in England, is robot for traffic lights. 1958 Johannesburg Star 16 Dec. 6/7 Johannesburg drivers..want to turn right or left while pedestrians, with the robot in their favour, are crossing. 1969 A. Fugard Boesman & Lena ii. 38 When the robot said ‘Go’ there at Berry's Corner I was nearly bang in my broek. 1974 Eastern Province Herald 2 Oct. 9 Vandals removed the lamps from seven traffic robots and the flashing head from a warning pole. |
d. A robot bomb.
temporary.
| 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 Prophesying Peace (1977) 86 From here Jamesy saw his first robot. |
2. attrib. and
Comb., as
robot army,
robot astronaut,
robot-brain,
robot clerk,
robot-land,
robot-maker,
robot masses,
robot (petrol) station,
robot-pilot,
robot satellite,
robot system,
robot type,
robot-worker;
robot-controlled,
robot-like (also
adv.),
robot-run adjs.;
robot bomb = flying bomb s.v. flying vbl. n. 3;
robot plane, (
a)
= queen bee s.v. queen n. 14; (
b)
= robot bomb;
robot roost, a place for the storage of robot bombs;
robot teacher, an electronic teaching aid;
robot train, a robot-controlled underground train.
| 1927 Morning Post 20 Aug. 9 (heading) Robot army ‘gassed’. 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. |
| 1944 Sun (Baltimore) 20 June 9/1 Most military authorities here are generally agreed that the robot bomb or plane is of..little military value. 1944 N.Y. Times 25 June 4e/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. 1951 Koestler Age of Longing i. viii. 140 The ancient Neanderthaler with a modern robot-brain. 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. |
| 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. 1964 Ann. Reg. 1963 394 London transport had also developed a robot-controlled underground train. |
| 1960 Koestler Lotus & Robot ii. vi. 173 The robotland reflected in the mirror makes us shudder. |
| 1927 N.Y. Times 7 Mar. 16 An iron Robotlike woman Rotwang had made previously. 1928 Daily Express 11 Aug. 3/7 The romance of past centuries and robot-like drama of modern times meet at Sandwich. 1972 T. McHugh Time of Buffalo xi. 132 Among the most widespread was the Pawnee myth of the robotlike buffalo skull that pursued and devoured people. Ibid. 133 Marching robotlike after the coyote, the skull eventually devoured him. 1976 B. Bova Multiple Man (1977) xiv. 147 That same robot⁓like Oriental butler served us steaks. |
| 1946 J. T. Shipley in W. S. Knickerbocker 20th Cent. Eng. 131 Despite robot-makers..human nature changes, if at all, but slowly. 1946 J. S. Huxley Unesco ii. 43 The robot masses and class-types of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. 1972 Times 9 Nov. 35/1 (heading) Robot petrol stations. Ibid., The two trends now being combined to produce what BP..calls robot stations, namely self⁓service and automatic money acceptance. |
| 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. |
| 1935 Robot plane [see queen bee]. 1944 J. Lees-Milne Prophesying Peace (1977) 84 Dame Una made stately preparations to dive under the table at the first sound of a robot plane. 1944 Sun (Baltimore) 20 June 1/3 United States heavy bombers struck twice today at the robot roost around Pas de Calais. 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. 1958 C. C. Adams Space Flight 142 A manned satellite will be a formidable project... Unlike the robot satellite, it cannot be built in the laboratory and then installed in or on a rocket for delivery to orbit. 1976 Sci. Amer. Feb. 77 (heading) Robot systems. |
| 1961 Daily Tel. 5 Sept. 21/5 Two robot teachers were on show in the Psychology Section. One, like a portable television set, had nine black knobs and a red button on the front. The pupil presses the black knobs to give his answer and the red button to obtain the correct solution. 1963 Ibid. 9 Apr. 17/4 (heading) Robot train tested with passengers. |
| 1959 H. Barnes Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 177 It is convenient to mount a Robot-type camera in a water⁓tight case, usually fastened to a pole. |
| 1935 H. G. Wells Things to Come 13 All the balderdash..about ‘robot workers’ and ultra skyscrapers, etc., etc., should be cleared out of your minds. |
Hence
roboˈteer, an expert in the making of robots;
roboˈtesque a., resembling or suggestive of a robot;
roˈbotian a., of or belonging to a robot or robots;
ˈrobotism, mechanical behaviour or character;
roˈbotnik [
-nik], a person behaving with mindless obedience to authority;
ˈrobotry, the condition or behaviour of robots;
ˈroboty a., robot-like.
| 1924 Observer 6 Jan. 12/2 When we reach the gloomy depths of ‘commercial English’—..we are dealing with a mere thing of use, the very pith and genius of Robotry. 1927 Daily Express 30 Aug. 3/4 The Girl in the Lift must on some occasions drop her magnificent Robotry. Ibid. 5 Sept. 9/1 There are times when they seem to be purely robotesque, automata driven by impulses of destruction beyond their control. 1928 Ibid. 17 Mar. 4/2 A few have their wooden craniums transfixed by bodkins, and some have Robotian hooks instead of hands. 1928 Observer 29 Jan. 9/3 (heading) The robotism of architecture. 1933 E. E. Cummings eimi 3 Horridly roboty child smothered by ferocious Blau, swinging a ditto balloon at end of wire. 1944 C. L. Moore in Astounding Sci. Fiction Dec. 155/2 The impression of robotism was what she meant to convey. 1946 Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. LIX. 190, I wish to define the rôle of robotism in psychology, to show what sense there is in talking about robots. 1955 Times 27 July 9 It might be a pretty compliment to the brothers Capek..if we called this new way of life robotry. 1960 Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Sept. 593/2 Too much law, and too centralized authority in all things breeds a society of automata, robotniks and helots. 1970 A. Toffler Future Shock ix. 180 Despite setbacks and difficulties, the roboteers are moving forward. |