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bot

[bot]

Origin

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noun

the larva of a botfly.

Also, bott¹.

Origin:
1425–75; late Middle English; akin to Dutch bot, Frisian dialect botten (plural); further origin obscure

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Bot is always a great word to know.

So is flibbertigibbet. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun Australian Slang.

a person who cadges; scrounger.

Origin:
1915–20; perhaps shortening of botfly

noun

a device or piece of software that can execute commands, reply to messages, or perform routine tasks, as online searches, either automatically or with minimal human intervention (often used in combination): intelligent infobots; shopping bots that help consumers find the best prices.

Origin:
1985–90; shortening of robot

Board of Trade.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Collins

World English Dictionary

bot or bott¹ (bɒt)

—n
1.	the larva of a botfly, which typically develops inside the body of a horse, sheep, or man
2.	any similar larva
3.	informal (NZ) a mild illness in humans

[C15: probably from Low German; related to Dutch bot, of obscure origin]

bott or bott¹

—n

[C15: probably from Low German; related to Dutch bot, of obscure origin]

bot² (bɒt)

—vb (often foll by on)
1.	to scrounge or borrow
2.	to scrounge (from); impose (on)

—n
3.	a scrounger
4.	on the bot wanting to scrounge: he's on the bot for a cigarette

[C20: perhaps from botfly, alluding to the creature's bite; see bite (sense 12)]

bot³ (bɒt)

—n
	computing an autonomous computer program that performs time-consuming tasks, esp on the internet

[C20: from (ro)bot]

BOT

—*abbreviation for*
	Board of Trade

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

bot

in Internet sense, c.2000, short for robot. Its modern use has curious affinities with earlier uses, e.g. "parasitical worm or maggot (1520s), of unknown origin; and Australian-N.Z. slang "worthless, troublesome person" (World War I-era). The method of minting new slang by

EXPAND

clipping the heads off respectable words does not seem to be old or widespread in English. Examples (za from pizza, zels from pretzels, rents from parents) are Amer.Eng. student or teen slang and seem to date back no further than late 1960s.

COLLAPSE

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

bot (bŏt)
n.

The parasitic larva of a botfly.
bots A disease of mammals, especially cattle and horses, caused by infestation of the stomach or intestines with botfly larvae.

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

bot (bŏt) Pronunciation Key
A software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom discussions.

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

bot definition

networking, chat, World-Wide Web
(From "robot") Any type of autonomous software that operates as an agent for a user or a program or simulates a human activity. On the Internet, the most popular bots are programs (called spiders or crawlers) used for searching. They access web sites, retrieve documents and follow all the hypertext links in them; then they generate catalogs that are accessed by search engines.
A chatbot converses with humans (or other bots). A shopbot searches the Web to find the best price for a product. Other bots (such as OpenSesame) observe a user's patterns in navigating a website and customises the site for that user.
Knowbots collect specific information from websites.
(1999-05-20)

American Heritage

Abbreviations & Acronyms

bot
small computer program (from "robot")

BOT