bot

The larva of a botfly, which infests the skin of various mammals, producing warbles, or the nasal passage of sheep, or the stomach of horses.

Noun literature, media

  1. A physical robot.
    • I stared at the bot and recognized her for the first time. She was me. - 1998, David G. Hartwell, editor, Year's best SF 3, page 130:
    • 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. - 2005, Greg Bear, Quantico, page 71:
    • The bot juddered to a halt, as the whole lower segment of its power arm darkened. - 2007, Peter F. Hamilton, The Dreaming Void:
  2. A piece of software designed to perform a task (often a minor but repetitive one) automatically or on command, especially when operating with the appearance of a (human) user profile or account.
    • 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...
    • 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...
    • 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...
  3. A computer-controlled character in a video game, especially a multiplayer one.
    • Next, you are placed in the world of RuneScape, which is similar to our own, with trees, grass, buildings, animals, and of course, people. In RuneScapes shops and banks there are bots' (computer-controlled players). -...
    • Most games offer both single player mode, in which a player competes against computer rivals—bots—and a multiplayer mode, which is a contest among people only. - 2012, Philip Hingston, Believable Bots: Can Computers...

    Synonyms: NPC AI

  4. A supremely unskilled player.
    • "That lobby was bronze negative 10!" Aydan joked on-stream, noting how easy it felt for his squad. "We got blessed with the lobby. It was such a bot lobby." - 2021 March 6, Aydan Conrad (quoted), Wesley Yin-Poole, “Call...
  5. A person with no ability to think for themselves; (by extension) an unintelligent or contemptible person.
    • The meaning of the word "bot" on Twitter/X seems to have shifted over time, with people originally using it to flag automated accounts, but now employing it to insult people they disagree with[.] - [2024 June 10, Chris...

    Synonyms: alcatote asshat arsehole asshole bayard berk birdbrain blither bobchin bonehead bozo buffoon brickhead Charlie chucklehead chowderhead chump clart clown der-brain dill pickle dim bulb dimwit dingleberry

Origin

Clipping of robot.

Forms

bots 'bot

Related

-bot

Derived

agribot aimbot Amabot antibot biobot bot farm bot herd bot herder botherder botless botlike botmaster botnet bottable botter botty Duchovbot infobot lawbot male-bot male bot malebot man-bot pleasurebot

Noun Entry 2

  1. The larva of a botfly, which infests the skin of various mammals, producing warbles, or the nasal passage of sheep, or the stomach of horses.
    • One deer, later found to be heavily parasitized by bots, suffered severe vomiting attacks during the early spring. - 1946, Canadian Journal of Research: Zoological Sciences, National Research Council of Canada, page 76:
    • 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. - 1984,...

Origin

Unknown. Possibly a modification of Scottish Gaelic boiteag (“maggot”), but the word already existed in Middle English, so the reverse direction of borrowing is likely. Possibly from Middle Low German [Term?].

Forms

bots bott

Derived

rodent bot

Noun UK, slang

  1. The bottom or backside.

Origin

From bottom.

Forms

bots

Verb UK, slang

  1. To bugger.
  2. 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.

    Synonyms: bum

Forms

bots botting botted

Verb video games

  1. To use a bot, or automated program.
    • Players caught botting will be banned from the server.

Forms

bots botting botted 'bot

Derived

viewbot