bot

1 of 3

noun (1)

ˈbät 

1

: robot

Bennett's referring to … a new police robot. It looks similar to the Albuquerque Bomb Squad robot next to it—both have cameras, an articulated arm, a mechanical gripper, and tank-like treads. But Benett's bot is different; it has brains.

—Popular Science

2

a

: a computer program that performs automatic repetitive tasks : agent sense 5

Several shopping "bots" will track down prices for on-line merchandise from a variety of vendors.

—Sam Vincent Meddis

especially : one designed to perform a malicious action

These bot programs churn away all day and night, prodding at millions of random IP addresses looking for holes to crawl through.

—Jennifer Tanaka

b

: a computer that has been infected with a bot and can be used for malicious purposes as part of a network of infected computers

These proxies then sent instructions to worker bots in set patterns, including templates for spam creation.

—Jeff Hecht

3

: a computer program or character (as in a game) designed to mimic the actions of a person

bot

2 of 3

noun (2)

variants or less commonly bott

: the larva of a botfly

especially : one infesting the horse

bot

3 of 3

abbreviation

1

botanical; botanist; botany

2

bottle

3

bottom

4

bought

Examples of bot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Some management experts worry that the practice could create a toxic work environment because sending a bot in your place suggests the meeting isn’t worth your time. —Byeamon Barrett, Fortune, 17 Nov. 2023

Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, on Tuesday, called for name verification on all social media profiles saying anonymous accounts and bots spreading misinformation are a national security threat. —Nidia Cavazos, CBS News, 15 Nov. 2023

In chess, which for decades now has been dominated by A.I., a player’s only hope is pairing up with a bot. —James Somers, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023

Similarly, cheap bots could coordinate with one another while deployed during search-and-rescue missions. —Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 8 Nov. 2023

How to Get Cheap Tickets to See Bad Bunny To help combat bots and scalpers, Ticketmaster allowed fans to register for early access to general admission tickets. —Latifah Muhammad, Billboard, 25 Oct. 2023

The bot is trained not to engage in discussions about religion or politics, for instance, or to reveal too much about Reid’s personal life. —Ej Dickson, Rolling Stone, 20 Oct. 2023

Some are fake or written by bots or paid people who don’t care about the product. —Kurt Knutsson, Fox News, 8 Nov. 2023

Elon Musk demonstrated his AI startup’s first product: a bot named Grok which will be made available to Premium+ subscribers to the X social-media platform after testing. —WSJ, 6 Nov. 2023

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Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

by shortening

Noun (2)

Middle English; akin to Dutch leverbot liver fluke

First Known Use

Noun (1)

1969, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun (2)

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

bot

1 of 2 noun

ˈbät

: the larva of a botfly

bot

2 of 2 noun

1

: robot

2

: a computer program that performs automatic, repetitive, and sometimes harmful tasks

3

: a computer program or character that mimics human actions

Medical Definition

bot

1 of 2 noun

variants also bott

ˈbät 

: the larva of a botfly

especially : one infesting the horse

bot

2 of 2 abbreviation

1

botanical; botanist; botany

2

bottle