Dictionaries › English

bot

Pronunciation: /bɒt/

The English word “bot” has 10 meanings listed here.

noun

  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.
  2. The bottom or backside.
  3. A physical robot.
  4. 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.
  5. A computer-controlled character in a video game, especially a multiplayer one.
  6. A supremely unskilled player.
  7. A person with no ability to think for themselves; (by extension) an unintelligent or contemptible person.

verb

  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.
  3. To use a bot, or automated program.

Etymology

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?].

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “bot” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.