robot

Forms

robot m (plural roboți)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French robot.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The French word was introduced in 1924, in the title of the translation of Karel Čapek's play Rossum’s Universal Robots (1921), where it names artificial workers made by a firm.^[6] Čapek formed it from Czech robota (“work; forced labour, corvée”);^[6][1] Scriban and Marcu & Maneca point to the same Czech word.^[7][8] The Czech noun goes back to Proto-Slavic *orbota (“work”), whose descendants include Old Church Slavonic работа (rabota, “slavery”).^[9][1]

Romanian robotă “corvée”, an older loan from Slavonic, comes from the same Slavic word, so the two are doublets.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dictionary to list it is Scriban's of 1939, which defines it as an automaton, a machine shaped roughly like a man that seems to work by itself.^[7] The DLR's earliest dated quotation is from the journal Contemporanul of 1948, already in a figurative sense: scientists who worked hard while their work was exploited are called real robots.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Romanian kept the figurative use from the start: a person who toils all the time, mechanically and without gain for himself.^[4][2] Ion Vinea compares a stiff walk to a robot's, the first record MDA2 gives.^[3][4]

Later senses follow the technology: a kitchen appliance combining a mixer, a juicer and a grater,^[3] and a telephone service or answering machine that records and plays back messages, quoted in the press from 2003.^[10] The word also forms compounds such as portret-robot “identikit picture” and avion-robot “drone”.^[10]

Timeline

• 1939 – listed in Scriban's dictionary as an automaton.^[7]
• 1948 – roboți “robots”, of overworked scientists, in Contemporanul.^[4]
• 2003 – robot for an automatic telephone service, in the press.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A robot: an automatic machine whose program lets it react to outside stimuli and carry out a series of guided actions, like a person.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) A person who works hard and mechanically, without understanding the purpose of the work; a drudge.^[2][5]
3. A kitchen appliance that combines a mixer, a juicer, a grater and other simple tools; a food processor.^[3]
4. An answering machine or automatic telephone service: robot telefonic.^[10]

Related words

• robotă

Usage notes

DEX and MDA2 list a second, neuter robot, a variant of robotă “corvée, forced labour”.^[2][3] Damé's dictionary of the 1890s has it in zile de robot “days of corvée”, and Weigand recorded it as “corvée, communal labour”.^[11][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 959
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 718
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. robot
5. ^ a b Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. robot
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1133
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. robot
9. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 373
10. ^ a b c d Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. robót
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. robot
12. ^ Weigand, Gustav (ed.) (1894–1909), Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig, I–XV, Leipzig: Barth, p. s.v. robot