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.
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 not uncommon for companies to blur the line between human and bot. Cloudsight.ai, for example, advertises an image-recognition service that “leverages the best of human and machine intelligence.”
From Slate • Sep. 4, 2018
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 Jameson, J. Franklin (John Franklin)
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.
