robotic

American  

[roh-bot-ik] / roʊˈbɒt ɪk /

adjective

1. in the manner of a robot; mechanical; lacking human intelligence or emotion.

   He’s so constant and efficient that he looks robotic on the ice, and his scores for artistic performance suffer.

2. performed by a robot without active guidance from a human operator.

   Over the course of several robotic missions, NASA gathered information about the surface of Mars and its atmosphere.

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Etymology

Origin of robotic

First recorded in 1925–30; robot ( def. ) + -ic ( def. )

Explanation

Something is robotic if it moves or behaves like a machine. If you express no emotion and do things in an automatic-seeming way, your friends might say you're robotic. The adjective robotic can describe something related to the use of robots, like a robotic technique for dismantling a bomb or a robotic tool for surgery. Often, it's used to describe a person who reminds you of a robot: "She gets good grades, but she's so robotic! All she does is work — never has any fun!" Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov is credited with the first use of robotic in 1941.

Related Words

• automatic
• computerized
• electronic
• mechanical
• mechanized