What is the difference between automaton and robot?
automaton | robot |
A machine or robot designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions.
A person who acts like a machine or robot, often defined as having a monotonous lifestyle and lacking in emotion.
A formal system, such as finite automaton.
A toy in the form of a mechanical figure.
A machine built to carry out some complex task or group of tasks, especially one which can be programmed.
* 2010 , Tim Webb, The Guardian , 16 May 2010:
(chiefly, science fiction) An intelligent mechanical being designed to look like a human or other creature, and usually made from metal.
* 2010 , Tom Chivers and Iain McDiarmid, The Telegraph , 26 Jan 2010:
(figuratively) A person who does not seem to have any emotions.
* Murray N. Rothbard, Making Economic Sense (page xiv)
(South Africa) A traffic light (from earlier robot policeman ).
(surveying) A theodolite which follows the movements of a prism and can be used by a one-man crew.
A style of dance popular in disco whereby the dancer impersonates the movement of a robot
Robot is a hyponym of automaton.
Robot is a hypernym of automaton.
As nouns the difference between automaton and robot
is that automaton is a machine or robot designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions while robot is a machine built to carry out some complex task or group of tasks, especially one which can be programmed.automaton
English
(wikipedia automaton)Noun
(en-noun)- Due to her strict adherence to her daily schedule, Jessica was becoming more and more convinced that she was an automaton .
- A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'til the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. - Thomas Jefferson
Derived terms
* auton * cellular automatonHyponyms
* robotrobot
English
(wikipedia robot)Noun
(en noun)- It's painfully slow and complex work which has never been attempted before in these conditions: the small box-shaped robots , equipped with two claws, are operating in almost freezing water 5,000ft below the surface, in pitch black and strong currents.
- The robots in Dick's novel, loosely adapted by Ridley Scott into the film Blade Runner, were so similar to humans that when they went rogue, trained bounty hunters were called in to perform psychological tests to see whether suspected androids lacked human empathy.
- Yet surely he was a humorless robot of a man, spewing forth lonely and bitter critiques of all those lesser mortals with whom he could not identify.