AUTOMATON • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Automaton

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/ɔtˈɑmətˌɑn/ Listen

noun

Automaton n. (pl. L. automata, E. automatons)

Any thing or being regarded as having the power of spontaneous motion or action. "So great and admirable an automaton as the world." "These living automata, human bodies."

A self-moving machine, or one which has its motive power within itself; applied chiefly to machines which appear to imitate spontaneously the motions of living beings, such as men, birds, etc.

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Etymology of 'Automaton'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Automaton" Quotes from Famous Books

... a moment blinking in the light. Then Jurgis felt his companion pulling, and he stepped in, and the blue automaton closed the door. Jurgis's heart was beating wildly; it was a bold thing for him to do—into what strange unearthly place he was venturing he had no idea. Aladdin entering his cave could not have been ...

— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... exhausting strain of the day, he was early chilled by the water into which he plunged the repentant sinners. For the last hour that he stood in the stream, his whole body was numb; he had ceased to feel life in his feet, and his arms worked with a mechanical stiffness like the arms of some automaton over which his mind ...

— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... they would." Eliot replied quite mechanically. He was hardly conscious that he had made any answer, and when, soon afterwards, Tony took himself off with a friendly: "Well, so long. See you in the morning, perhaps?" he responded once more like an automaton. ...

— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... was a small man, and a withered one, burned inside and outside by ardent spirits and ardent sun. He was a cinder, a bit of a clinker of a man, a little animated clinker, not yet quite cold, that moved stiffly and by starts and jerks like an automaton. A gust of wind would have blown him ...

— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... with an automaton-like stiffness, never changing his course, and occasionally stumbling as if unaware of the character of the ground over which he passed. His head swung out slightly to either side and he snapped each time. There was something sinister in every move, as if his body was driven ...

— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

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