Digital Technology. a software program that can execute commands, reply to messages, or perform routine tasks, as online searches, either automatically or with minimal human intervention (often used in combination): a customer service chatbot to answer product questions.
a social media bot retweeting certain posts;
a customer service chatbot to answer product questions.
Informal. a robot.
botanical.
botanist.
botany.
bottle.
to scrounge or borrow
to scrounge (from); impose (on)
a scrounger
wanting to scrounge
he's on the bot for a cigarette
botanical
botany
the larva of a botfly, which typically develops inside the body of a horse, sheep, or man
any similar larva
informal a mild illness in humans
First recorded in 1985–90; bot 1 def. 2 first recorded in 1965–70; shortening of robot
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English; akin to Dutch bot, Frisian dialect botten (plural); further origin unknown
First recorded in 1915–20; perhaps shortening of botfly
A bot is a computer program that imitates human activity online. Bots are especially good at doing repetitive tasks very quickly — much faster than a person possibly could. The word bot is shorthand for robot, and it can describe independently moving machines that perform tasks, like the bot vacuum cleaner that terrifies your cat. Online bots have also been programmed to do boring jobs, like mining data from the web or answering basic customer service questions. Most bots are benign (or even useful), but some are malicious, programmed to spread disinformation, spam, and computer viruses.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Maybe they will be motivated to use the SpaceX AI bot, called Grok, instead of its many competitors, like Gemini, Claude, Perplexity or Chat GPT.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
Yandex did experience a crash in bot activity, but at least some of that traffic seems to be legitimate.
From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2026
Some social media users have been sharing charts of Cloudflare data which show bot activity using Yandex's network has declined.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Oakland resident Assata Olugbala, 81, asked for help removing Google’s AI bot Gemini from her devices after it started offering help she hadn’t requested.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
His brothers, sisters, half-siblings, grandma, and her all-too-perfect husband, who Rowan suspected might actually be a bot.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
When one three-year-old told Gabbo: "I'm sad," it replied: "Don't worry! I'm a happy little bot. Let's keep the fun going. What shall we talk about next?"
From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2026
“You are not a bot. Be Counted. Census 2020.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 1, 2020
“We thought that, like, everybody’s bots were just going to beat ours, that’s why we spent so much time trying to build the perfect bot. And it wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.”
From New York Times ● Feb. 22, 2019
“It’s a bot, Rivera. A malfunctioning bot. Stick it in a cell. I’ll get someone to look at product liability law in the morning.”
From Slate ● Apr. 26, 2016
R. To the first Out sett for provisions etc. bot. att Rhode Island and New York, being £1698.
From Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period Illustrative Documents by J. Franklin (John Franklin) Jameson
B.O.T. pays authors or their estates 10% of its rental fee and calls its service, not immodestly, "the thinking man's CB."
From Time Magazine Archive
Still, the BOT doesn’t see a case for cutting rates.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
Near term, there is no reason for the BOT to break its streak of not raising rates since September 2023.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
Against that backdrop, many economists think the BOT could stay on the sidelines for the rest of the year, keeping monetary settings loose to support the fragile economy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026
There is little prospect of the BOT following the tightening seen in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, said Gareth Leather at Capital Economics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026
ANZ expects BOT to begin hiking rates in August, delivering two consecutive 25bp hikes and taking the policy rate to 1.50% by October from the current 1.00%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
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