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Bot vs Backup - What's the difference?

bot | backup |

As nouns the difference between bot and backup

is that bot is bot while backup is a reserve or substitute.

As an adjective backup is

standby, reserve or extra.

bot

English

(wikipedia bot)

Etymology 1

Possibly a modification of Scottish Gaelic .

Alternative forms

* bott

Noun

(en noun)
  • The larva of a bot fly, which infests the skin of various mammals, producing warbles, or the nasal passage of sheep, or the stomach of horses.
  • * 1946 , National Research Council of Canada, Canadian Journal of Research: Zoological Sciences , page 76,
    • One deer, later found to be heavily parasitized by bots , suffered severe vomiting attacks during the early spring.
  • * 1984 , Adrian Forsyth, Kenneth Miyata, Tropical Nature , page 157,
    • Jerry prepared a glass jar with sterilized sand to act as a nursery for his pulsating bot , but despite his tender ministrations the larva dried out and died before it could encase itself in a pupal sheath.

    Etymology 2

    From bottom.

    Verb

  • (British, slang) To bugger
  • (Australia, informal) To ask for and be given something with the direct intention of exploiting the thing’s usefulness, almost exclusively with cigarettes.
    • Can I bot a smoke?
    Jonny always bots off me. I just wish he’d get his own pack.
    Usage notes
    Although there are some references that mention that somebody could actually be a "bot" if they practice the art of botting , this noun is not really commonly used.
    Synonyms
    * (To ask for something) bum (UK)

    Etymology 3

    Shortened from robot.

    Alternative forms

    * 'bot

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (science fiction, informal) A physical robot.
  • * 1998 , David G. Hartwell (editor), Year's best SF 3 , page 130,
    • I stared at the bot and recognized her for the first time.
    She was me.
  • * 2007 , , The Dreaming Void , unnumbered page,
    • The bot juddered to a halt, as the whole lower segment of its power arm darkened.
  • * 2005 , , Quantico , page 71,
    • As he guided the bot, Andrews reminisced about his younger days in Wyoming, when he had witnessed a mishandled load of wheat puff out a dusty fog.
  • (computing) A piece of software designed to complete a minor but repetitive task automatically or on command, especially when operating with the appearance of a (human) user profile or account.
  • * 2009 , Ryan Farley, Xinyuan Wang, Roving Bugnet: Distributed Surveillance Threat and Mitigation'', Dimitris Gritzalis, Javier López (editors), ''Emerging Challenges for Security, Privacy and Trust: 24th IFIP TC 11 International Information Security Conference , page 42,
    • The goals of IRC bots' vary widely, such as automatically kicking other users off or more nefarious things like spamming other IRC users. In this paper, a free standing IRC ' bot is presented that monitors an IRC channel for commands from a particular user and responds accordingly.
  • * 2009 , Richard K. Neumann, Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing: Structure, Strategy, and Style , page 91,
    • He is particularly good at creating web robots, which are also called bots .
    A bot' is software that searches for certain kinds of websites and then automatically does something — good or bad — on each site. Google uses ' bots to search and index websites.
  • * 2010 , Dusty Reagan, Twitter Application Development For Dummies , page 59,
    • Twitter bots' can leverage Twitter?s text message support to allow users to accomplish tasks from their cell phones. You could consider Twitter accounts that are simply an automated import of blog?s RSS feed a Twitter ' bot .
  • (video games) A computer-controlled character in a multiplayer video game, such as a first-person shooter.
    • Related terms
    * -bot suffix

    Verb

    (bott)
  • (video games) To use a bot, or automated program.
    • Players caught botting will be banned from the server.

    See also

    * Bots

    References

    * English terms with multiple etymologies ----

    backup

    English

    Alternative forms

    * back-up

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A reserve or substitute.
    • If the goalkeeper is injured, we have a backup .
  • (computing) A copy of a file or record, stored separately from the original, that can be used to recover the original if it is destroyed or damaged.
    • After the power failure, we had to restore the database from backup .
  • An accumulation of material that halts the flow or movement of something.
    • The blockage caused a backup in the plumbing.
  • (law enforcement) reinforcements
    • He's got a gun - you better send for backup .

    Synonyms

    * (reserve ): reserve, stand-in, spare, substitute * (computing: copy of a file or record ): * (accumulation of material that halts flow ): block, blockage

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Standby, reserve or extra.
    • I am only a backup player.
  • (computing) That is intended as a backup.
    • Make a backup copy of that file.

    Synonyms

    * (reserve) extra, reserve, spare, standby

    Usage notes

    Back-up'' is an alternative spelling of backup. Both spellings are used as either a noun or an adjective. The verb ''back up is always spelled as two words and never with a hyphen.