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Line drawing of roboto
Coloured illustration of roboto
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Translation

robot

Word origin

From Czech robota, forced labour, coined for Karel Čapek's 1920 play R.U.R. It is one of the few words the whole world took from Czech, and Esperanto took it along with everyone else.

Origin
Czech
Root
robota
English cognates
robot, robotics

Examples

.

The robot works in the factory by day and by evening.

?

Can a robot think?

.

In the future robots will cook for us.

A young word, and a rare case of a coinage with a known birthday: Čapek's play opened in Prague in 1921 and robota, drudgery, became the international noun for a machine that does it. Esperanto adapted it the ordinary way, root plus -o.

The derivations are all regular: robota for robotic, robotiko for robotics, i for to automate.

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Esperanto · Free printables

roboto: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "roboto" (robot): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 33.