AUTOMATON • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... an automaton worked by environment, all the same he is the slave of environment, and never such a slave as when his environment is ...

— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... for a share of Jack's most gracious intentions, and though he was as silent as an automaton playing a game of chess, a slight crack was visible in the veneer of his face when Jack thanked him for having brought Mr. Grayson—same reverential pronunciation—upstairs himself instead of allowing Frederick or one of the ...

— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... "I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said Rose, speaking from a corner where she was sitting on the carpet at the foot of a bookcase, with a volume spread open on her knee.—"Miss Helstone, how do you do?" she added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed, and then again casting down ...

— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... think, not to speak, to mould himself to that dead world; he would be among the living statues peopling the upper cloister, one more automaton; he would imitate those beings who seemed to have absorbed into themselves something of the austerity of the granite buttresses, he would inhale like a healing balsam the scent of the rusty iron railings and the incense that spread through the church, the ancient ...

— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... half a dozen voices speaking together: "Why, man, you must have had ten cents on each of these letters, before they crossed the lines"; and "How can we pay postage?" "He knows we have no money"; "What good will the bits of paper do him at all, at all?" But the man kept on like an automaton. ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

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