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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A self-operating machine or mechanism, especially a robot.
  2. n. One that behaves or responds in a mechanical way.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. That which is self-moving, or has the power of spontaneous movement, but is not conscious.
  2. n. Specifically A self-acting machine, or one which is actuated in such a manner as to carry on for some time certain movements without the aid of external impulse. In this respect clocks and watches, with a vast number of other machines, may be denominated automata; but the term more specifically denotes an apparatus in which the purposely concealed power is made to imitate the voluntary or mechanical motions of living beings, such as men, horses, birds, fishes, etc.
  3. n. A living being acting mechanically or as a mere machine, especially without consciousness; a person or an animal whose actions are purely involuntary or mechanical.
  4. n. A person who acts in a monotonous routine manner, without active intelligence, especially without being fully aware of what he is doing.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A machine or robot designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions.
  2. n. A formal system, such as finite automaton.
  3. n. A toy in the form of a mechanical figure

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Any thing or being regarded as having the power of spontaneous motion or action.
  2. n. 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.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. someone who acts or responds in a mechanical or apathetic way
  2. n. a mechanism that can move automatically

Etymologies

  1. Latin, self-operating machine, from Greek, from neuter of automatos, self-acting; see automatic.

Examples

  • “The automaton is all that is left of his previous life.”

    Archive 2008-07-01

  • “The automaton is one of many built to help Lincoln hit the campaign trail and who subsequently became the sheriff of a small town.”

    REVIEW: Extraordinary Engines edited by Nick Gevers

  • “This year’s homework question was to find an interesting cellular automaton from the rule space of radius 3/2 with two colors.”

    Wolfram Blog : Return of the NKS Summer School

  • “He became a visitor to the "Man with the Rolling Eye," though I believe he used to call my automaton "The Sheik of Baalbec.”

    The Blue Wall A Story of Strangeness and Struggle

  • “Thus, according to Descartes, the animal body is an automaton, which is competent to perform all the animal functions in exactly the same way as”

    Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews

  • “Eventually, having struck up a friendship with Mr Méliès's cute and adventurous niece Isabelle, Hugo discovers that the old man is none other than the real life great pre-war film-maker Georges Méliès, fallen on hard times and turning his face against his own gift - and that the automaton is a special link to him.”

    Evening Standard - Home

  • “We look here only to the necessity of the connection of events in a time-series as it is developed according to the physical law, whether the subject in which this development takes place is called automaton materiale when the mechanical being is moved by matter, or with Leibnitz spirituale when it is impelled by ideas; and if the freedom of our will were no other than the latter”

    The Critique of Practical Reason

  • “Indeed Rivera manages to capture not just the feeling of intense activity in an automobile plant but the kind of automaton-like rhythm we associate with assembly-line production.”

    The Wall Street Journal: When the Motor City Was a Symbol of Strength

  • “An encounter with an eccentric girl and the owner of small toy kiosk in the train station sets in motion a mysterious adventure involving a stolen key, a treasured notebook, and an enigmatic mechanical man or "automaton" – with the real-life figure of cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès providing the crucial link between inventive fantasy and historical fact.”

    The Guardian: Martin Scorsese: '3D is liberating. Every shot is rethinking cinema'

  • “Suddenly, Hillary was no longer the "automaton" with wonkish talk.”

    Analysis: Obama Assembled A Bill Bradley Coalition In NH ��� And Lost, Too

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‘automaton’ has been looked up 1468 times, loved by 6 people, added to 60 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 11.