Fwd: "automaton, n." - Word of the Day from the OED

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Your word for today is: automaton, n.

automaton, n.
Pronunciation: Brit. /ɔːˈtɒmət(ə)n/,  U.S. /ɔˈtɑməd(ə)n/,
/ɑˈtɑməd(ə)n/, /ɔːˈtɑməˌtɑn/, /ɑˈtɑməˌtɑn/
Inflections:  Plural  automata,  automatons.
Forms: α.   16– automaton,   17 automata's plural.  β.   16–17 automatum.
Etymology: <  classical Latin automatum automatic contrivance and its
etymon ancient Greek αὐτόματον marionette, use as noun of neuter of
αὐτόματος (adjective) acting of itself, spontaneous, (of plants)
growing by themselves, (of events) happening by themselves <  αὐτό-
auto- comb. form1 + -ματος < the same Indo-European base as Sanskrit
mata thought, considered, classical Latin -mentus (in commentus
feigned), Lithuanian mintas trodden, stamped, representing a
participial formation < the Indo-European base of ancient Greek μέμονα
(see i-mind n.). Compare automa n., automate n., autom n.
Compare the following slightly earlier attestation of ancient Greek
αὐτόματον in an English context:
1611  T. Coryate Crudities sig. T8v, The picture of a Gentlewoman,
whose eies were contriued‥, that they moued vp and down of
themselues,‥done by a vice which the Grecians call αὐτόματον.

The Greek noun was also borrowed into other European languages, in
some of these indirectly (via Latin or another language). Compare e.g.
French automate automate n., Spanish autómato (1582), (now usually)
autómata (1729), Portuguese autômato (1712), Italian automa, †automato
(see automa n.), Dutch automaat (1813; earlier with Greek or Latin
endings: †automata, plural (1552), †automaton (1558), †automatum
(1769)), German Automat automat n.

In plural form automata after the Greek and Latin plural forms. The
plural forms automata and automatons coexist in modern English.
Attempts to establish semantic guidelines for the use of the two
plural forms are rare in modern usage guides; apparently the only such
attempt is made in R. W. Burchfield New Fowler's Mod. Eng. Usage (ed.
3, 1998) 79/2, which states (echoing earlier statements in various
editions of H. W. Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage): ‘The plural is automata
when used collectively, otherwise (much less commonly) automatons’.
Several usage guides merely comment that the -s plural is more common,
or that the plural form automata belongs to the learned register.
Corpus evidence suggests that the -s plural is especially frequent in
the transferred sense 3c.
 1.
 a.  A moving device having a concealed mechanism, so it appears to
operate spontaneously. Freq. (and in earliest use) in figurative and
similative contexts. Now chiefly hist.
Originally denoting various functional instruments including clocks,
watches, etc., as well as moving mechanical devices made in imitation
of human beings; later (from the early 19th cent.) usually restricted
to figures simulating the action of living beings and widely regarded
as toys or curiosities, as clockwork statues or animals, images
striking the hours on timepieces, etc.
1616  W. Cornwallis Ess. Certaine Paradoxes sig. G3, The soule doth
quicken and giue life to the body, the body like an Automaton, doth
moue and carry it selfe and the soule.
1645  J. Evelyn Mem. (1857) I. 205 Another automaton strikes the quarters.
1660  H. More Explan. Myst. Godliness ii. iii. 37 God will not let the
great Automaton of the Universe be so imperfect.
1742  J. T. Desaguliers tr.  M. Vaucauson  (title) An Account of the
Mechanism of an Automaton or Image Playing on the German Flute.
1784  P. Thicknesse Speaking Figure 5 That an Automaton can be made to
move the Chessmen properly, as a sagacious player,‥is‥utterly
impossible.
?1790  J. Imison School of Arts (ed. 2) 284 Those automata‥do by
little interstices, or strokes, measure out long portions of time.
1815  Scott Guy Mannering I. xx. 315 Sprawling out his leg, and
bending his back like an automaton.
1821 New Monthly Mag. 1 443 Archytas' flying dove‥is another of the
ancient automata‥. It was made of wood.
1859  F. C. L. Wraxall tr.  J. E. Robert-Houdin Mem. I. v. 74 He gave
me the automaton I was to repair.
1908  G. K. Chesterton Man who was Thursday xi. 232 They moved with a
sort of dreadful and wicked woodenness, like a staring army of
automatons.
1955 Times 31 Aug. 5 He had toyed with many crafts on the fringe of
the theatre—scene-making, puppetry, the construction of automata.
1985 Christie's East (N.Y.) Sale Catal.: Collectibles 3 Dec. No. 153
Lady acrobat automaton,‥the figure nods and turns somersaults.
2008 Guardian (Nexis) 12 Jan. (Review section) 20 An antique
mechanical figure, a clockwork automaton that Hugo's father had been
restoring.
 b.  A machine which resembles and is able to simulate the actions of
a human being; humanoid robot, an android (in early use freq. in
Science Fiction); (also) a machine which performs tasks usually
associated with human workers.
1922  M. P. Allen in Trend 21 Sept. 291/2 At the first whiff, the
automaton moved hesitatingly, then faster and more oddly, in jerks, in
jumps, in writhings.
1931 Ann. Amer. Acad. Polit. & Social Sci. 154 20/1 Iron chink—an
automaton which revolutionizes fish-canning industry; completely
cleans fish.
1944  C. L. Moore in Astounding Sci.-Fiction Dec. 138/2 And for one
dreadful moment it was the voice of an automaton that sounded in the
room, metallic, without inflection.
1969 Amer. Philos. Q. 6 74/2 An adequate description of an automaton
capable of exhibiting behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human
being would amount to a semantic account of interpretation of its data
handling capacities.
2004 Chess Jan. 32/1 Sarah Bernhardt, world famous diva,‥also liked
chess and enjoyed battling ‘Ajeeb’, the chess playing automaton, when
located at the Eden Museum on 24th Street in New York City.
†2.  In literal sense. A being or thing having the power of
spontaneous motion or self-movement. Obs.
1639  J. Fletcher et al.  Bloody Brother iv. i. sig. G*1av, [It] doth
move alone, A true automaton.
a1797  E. Burke Hints Ess. Drama in Writings & Speeches (1997) I. 558
The perfect Drama, an automaton supported and moved without any
foreign help, was formed late and gradually.
1818 New Monthly Mag. June 386/1 We should obtain an automaton, whose
activity, independent of all mechanical resource and all external
influence, would owe its movement to itself alone.
1851 Palladium Mar. 165 Man being the only true automaton or self-mover.
1877  F. Bowen Mod. Philos. xiv. 255 If the causes are psychical, if
they are motives, then the machine is a spiritual automaton‥. Such
automata‥are‥driven by causes within themselves.
 3.  In extended use (chiefly from sense 1).
 a.  A living being regarded as the sum of its physical functions,
motions, or parts. Now rare.
1644  K. Digby Two Treat. i. xxiii. 208 Because these partes [sc. the
mover and the moved] are partes of one whole; we call the entire thing
Automatum, or se mouens; or a liuing creature.
1686  R. Boyle Free Enq. Notion Nature 305 These living Automata, Human bodies.
1713  D. Bartlett in Guardian 10 Aug. 2/2 To be considered as
Automata, made up of Bones and Muscles, Nerves, Arteries and Animal
Spirits.
1880  T. H. Huxley Crayfish iii. 127 And such a self-adjusting
machine, containing the immediate conditions of its actions within
itself, is what is properly understood by an Automaton.
1908 Med. Standard Mar. 153/1 The human body‥takes in crude materials
in the shape of food and oxygen, and‥extracts from them‥the heat that
warms, the energy that controls and the power that propels the living
automaton.
 b.  An organism that functions purely involuntarily or mechanically;
an animal, insect, etc., not motivated by higher consciousness or
intelligence.
1664  H. Power Exper. Philos. sig. b2v, The Naturalists‥having onely
described‥the larger‥sort of Animals, as Bulls, Bears, Tygers, &c.
whilst they have‥pass'd by the Insectile Automata.
1678  R. Cudworth True Intellect. Syst. Universe i. i. 50 Consequently
that themselves were but Machins and Automata.
1691  J. Ray Wisdom of God 38 Should this be true, that Beasts were
Automata or Machines, they could have no sense or perception of
Pleasure or Pain.
1777  J. Priestley Disquis. Matter & Spirit xviii. 235 Descartes‥made
the souls of brutes to be mere automata.
1837  J. S. Bushnan Philos. Instinct & Reason viii. 153 It
is‥erroneous to imagine that we detract from the proper rank of the
lower animals by representing them‥as a kind of automaton.
1898  T. Hardy Wessex Poems 166 Come we of an Automaton Unconscious of
our pains? Or are we live remains Of Godhead‥, brain and eye now gone?
1901  M. C. Dickerson Moths & Butterflies ii. 148 The leader may stop
to nibble the leaf, or rest;‥the automatons behind show no impatience.
2002  R. Porter Blood & Guts iv. 83 Bernard was no vulgar
materialist‥. Living creatures were not automata wholly at the mercy
of the external environment.
 c.  Now freq. with plural  automatons. A human being resembling an
automaton; a person who acts, or appears to act, in an inhuman,
mechanical, or unemotional way.
1785  E. Sheridan Jrnl. 22 Sept. (1960) 72 Mrs Dexter‥says the Goths
in her neighbourhood had the impudence to think of your playing second
to that Automaton Mrs Kennan.
1796  J. G. Stedman Narr. Exped. Surinam I. ix. 200 The whole party
[of slaves] was a set of scarcely animated automatons.
1844  B. Disraeli Coningsby II. iv. xi. 155 ‘Do you think so?’ said
the Princess‥. ‘Have these automata indeed souls?’
1873  J. A. Symonds Stud. Greek Poets v. 140 How could a Spartan, that
automaton of the state‥excel in any fine art?
1917 Mother Earth Bull. Dec. 2/2 It is well for the Revolution that
her people are uncultured‥. That means not yet drilled into blind
obedience, into automata, into cringing slaves.
1951  C. S. Forester Randall & River of Time xi. 167 Last night they
had staggered into the village, exhausted automata; now, after sixteen
hours' rest‥they were lively young men again.
1966  V. Nabokov Speak, Memory xiii. 265 Ruthless, paste-faced
automatons in opulent John Held trousers.
2006 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 23 Mar. a25/2 Tables surrounded by
disagreeable automatons in dark coats.
 4.  Computing. A (real or hypothetical) machine whose responses to
all permissible inputs are specified by a set of states and a set of
rules for passing from one state to another.
cellular, finite automaton: see the first element.
1949 Science 21 Oct. 434/3 The Theory and Organization of Complicated
Automata will be the subject of a series of lectures to be
presented‥by John von Neumann.
1951  J. von Neumann in  L. A. Jeffress Cerebral Mechanisms in
Behavior 15 We are very far from possessing a theory of automata which
deserves that name, that is, a properly mathematical-logical theory.
1966  M. Gross in Automatic Transl. of Lang. (NATO Summer School,
Venice, 1962) 130 This non-deterministic automaton is equivalent to a
recognition routine that would look for one ‘most probable’ solution.
1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia II. 498/2 The class of general automata
includes all-purpose, electronic digital computers the memory-storage
units of which are of fixed‥size.
2000  G. Ştefănescu Network Algebra viii. 224 The behaviour of
automata is provided by the directed paths connecting initial states
with final states.
Compounds
 C1.  General attrib. and appositive, as automaton existence,
automaton figure, automaton smile, automaton watch, etc.
1769  J. Cox Descr. Piece Mechanism & Art 6 Before the bells are two
Automaton figures of a man and a woman.
1822 Sat. Evening Post 1 June 3/2 Many years ago the exhibition of the
automaton flute player excited the admiration and astonishment of all
Europe.
1847  H. Melville Omoo lxxii. 278 Heavens! my head's all wheels and
springs, like the automaton chess-player!
1883  O. Schreiner Story Afr. Farm I. ii. ii. 325 He smiled his
automaton smile, and rebuttoned the bag.
1914  C. Hamilton Blindness of Virtue iv. 48 Endowed with a faculty
for make-believe‥, she instantly built up round her automaton husband
a wonderful romance.
1945  P. White Let. 24 Oct. (1994) iii. 63, I can think of nothing
more exhilarating‥than escape from the Service and the automaton
existence‥one has led for so long.
1970 Canad. Antiques Collector Apr. 21/2 Mechanically similar to
automaton watches, and just as fascinating to the novice,‥are
automaton clocks.
1980 Globe & Mail(Toronto) (Nexis) 30 Aug., There seemed to be no
communication [between the band members], just the‥synchronized,
automaton movement through section after section of their involved
pieces.
2006 Wired Jan. 125/4 Czech author Karel Capek coined the term robot
in his 1920 play about automaton factory workers.
 C2.
 automata theory n. Computing the study of formally defined automata
(in sense 4).
1956  C. E. Shannon  & J. McCarthy Automata Stud. p. vi, The present
volume is a collection of papers which deal with various aspects of
automata theory.
1964 Information & Control 7 485  (title) Pair algebra and its
application to automata theory.
1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia II. 497/2 Original work on the
neurophysiological aspect of automata theory was done by Warren S.
McCulloch and Walter Pitts‥starting in the 1940s.
2002  T. Haigh in  U. Hashagen et al.  Hist. Computing i. 62 In
general an early concern with automata theory gave way to a later
focus on algorithmics.
Derivatives

 auˈtomaton-like adv. and adj.
1770  T. Jefferson Corr. in Wks. (1859) I. 194 Your periagua‥will meet
us, automaton-like, of its own accord.
1812  T. B. Johnson Impartial Hist. Europe III. xix. 548 They
continued their route‥although the change which had taken place‥must
have rendered this automaton-like method, glaringly absurd.
1866  G. MacDonald Ann. Quiet Neighbourhood xxvi. 451 Her lips, with
automaton-like movement, uttered the words.
1921 Everybody's Mag. July 173/1 He advanced, automaton-like, to the
center of the room.
1995  B. Sheldon Cognitive-behavioural Therapy i. 27 Distant,
automaton-like behaviour is unlikely to sustain co-operation.

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