Robot
A machine that can perform tasks automatically
Language Origin
Czech
Entered English
20thth century
The Story Behind the Word
Robot is one of the few English words that comes from Czech. It was introduced to the world in the 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Čapek.
The word comes from the Czech robota, meaning "forced labor" or "drudgery" — and further back to the Old Church Slavonic rabota (servitude), related to rab (slave). This root is also found in the Russian работа (rabota), simply meaning "work."
Čapek's play depicted artificial beings created to do humanity's work — and the word spread globally almost instantly. It's one of the very rare cases where we can pinpoint exactly when and where a common English word was invented.
Example in Context
"The factory replaced manual assembly lines with industrial robots to increase efficiency."
Did You Know?
Karel Čapek himself said it was actually his brother Josef who suggested the word "robot" when Karel needed a name for his artificial beings.
