automaton
Americannoun
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automatons,
plural
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automata
plural
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a mechanical figure or contrivance constructed to act as if by its own motive power; robot.
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a person or animal that acts in a monotonous, routine manner, without active intelligence.
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something capable of acting automatically or without an external motive force.
noun
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a mechanical device operating under its own hidden power; robot
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a person who acts mechanically or leads a routine monotonous life
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of automaton
1605–15; < Latin: automatic device < Greek, noun use of neuter of autómatos spontaneous, acting without human agency, equivalent to auto- auto- 1 + -matos, adj. derivative from base of memonénai to intend, ménos might, force
Explanation
If you walk like an automaton, you move stiffly, like a robot. An automaton is something constructed to be human-like, or a person who seems to have lost the spark of life. When you see the word, think of Frankenstein's monster, or C3PO from Star Wars. They're not quite human, but they were made to appear so. Used metaphorically, this word suggests the loss of joy and sense of life that makes someone seem like a robot or zombie. After a bad loss, the baseball team might be sitting around like a bunch of automatons. They're mopey and lifeless.
Vocabulary lists containing automaton
Do it Yourself: Words Beginning with "AUTO"
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Mechanical Engineering
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The Hot Zone
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
At January’s conference, robots, including Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, a 6-foot-2-inch automaton weighing in at just under 200 pounds with a digital smiley face, were the stars.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
The term for an automaton picked up steam elsewhere with the advent of artificial intelligence and the wider adoption of delivery robots.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2025
The success of “Maybe Happy Ending” hinges in no small part on the miraculous performance of Darren Criss, who plays an automaton with a secretly sensitive heart.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2025
The application was consuming me, organizing my synapses like an automaton farmer who makes Munsen predictions regarding the historical flow of neurotransmission.
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2023
And the more he worked on the automaton, the more he came to believe something that he knew was completely crazy.
From "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick
Campione has become known for her unique specialism in dolls, doll houses, automata, birdcages and corkscrews.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2024
There, in the Morris Museum’s collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata, is a music box from around 1877.
From New York Times ● Apr. 2, 2024
Perhaps the message was hinting at the aliens’ appearance, morse code, cellular automata or the genetic secrets of E.T.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 3, 2023
Applying pen to paper, the mathematicians constructed the concept of cellular automata, dynamical entities made up of shaded or unshaded cells skipping across a two-dimensional grid.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 6, 2023
Hugo continued flipping through the book, seeing if there was anything at all about automata, but the book was silent on the subject.
From "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick
Even with peak robot decades away, automatons will be an increasingly important part of a stock portfolio.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
In small factories across America, agile automatons are making everything from parts for AI supercomputers to the hulls of America’s future autonomous naval weapons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
But by the time Descartes catalyzed the Enlightenment in the 17th century, he had reduced other animals to mere automatons, tainting centuries of science with the assumption that anything unlike us is inherently inferior.
From New York Times ● Mar. 26, 2024
Some in the party are anxious about this and accuse Reeves and other shadow ministers of sounding "robotic", like "automatons".
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2024
“Good automatons are what she needs. They never act up!”
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
