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 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
He's a dour, withdrawn, cold automaton who many people who know him really can't stand.
From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2023
The still-woozy Kate began reciting religious poetry like an automaton, at least a hundred lines in a row.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
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
As you get used to treating human-like automata as automata, you may slowly find yourself treating humans the same.
From The Verge ● May 4, 2022
I wondered: Can cellular automata incorporate nonlocal entanglements?
From Scientific American ● Feb. 14, 2021
Even animals, in Descartes’ view, were just automata.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
The automatons he has created seem to lack the necessary ability to distinguish between friend and foe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
Even with peak robot decades away, automatons will be an increasingly important part of a stock portfolio.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
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
Suddenly I had a weird thought: Could stone statues be automatons too?
From "The Last Olympian" 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.
