Robota
/roʊˈbɒtə/noun
Forced labor, compulsory service, or exhausting drudgery, especially in historical Central European contexts.
Did you know?Karel Čapek popularized the word in the 1920 play R.U.R., but credited his brother Josef with suggesting “robot” from Czech robota, a term associated with serf labor.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*orbho-
“A person who has changed status or lacks the protection of a family; the proposed ancestral root behind “orphan” and the Slavic labor word.”
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic
*orbota
“Work, labor, or service; descended through a Slavic development involving a servant or dependent worker.”
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
rabota
“Work, labor, or service.”
Medieval Czech
Czech
robota
“Compulsory labor owed by peasants or serfs to a feudal lord; later, burdensome drudgery.”
1920
Czech
robot
“In Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R., an artificial manufactured worker; the form was derived from robota.”
Modern English
English
robota
“A rare English borrowing meaning forced labor or drudgery, while its shortened form “robot” became the common word for a machine capable of programmed tasks.”