Bot

How to spell bot

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bot

What does bot mean?

1. nounAn automated software program that performs tasks online, often without human intervention.

Bot in a sentence

• A customer service bot answered the query within seconds.

• The website blocked traffic that looked like it came from a bot rather than a person.

Where does bot come from?

Language of origin: Other

The most common modern sense is a clipping of 'robot', which itself was coined in 1920 by the Czech writer Karel Capek for his play R.U.R., from the Czech word 'robota' meaning 'forced labour' or 'drudgery'. As computing spread, people shortened 'robot' to 'bot' to describe small automated programs that carry out repetitive tasks online, a usage that took hold in the 1990s. A quite separate and much older 'bot' refers to the parasitic larva of the botfly; that sense is recorded from the sixteenth century and is probably of Gaelic or Celtic origin, though its exact source is uncertain. Because the word is so short and is spelled exactly as it sounds, the spelling itself causes almost no trouble; the only real care is choosing the right meaning. The two senses are unrelated despite sharing three letters.

How the word is built

• Shortened from 'robot' (no internal affixes; a clipped form)

Words that sound like bot

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• bought: Past tense and past participle of 'buy': obtained something in exchange for money.