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THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
011
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
022
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
033
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 2
resolvedestablishedexact word
Did Karel Čapek personally invent robot?
Karel introduced and popularized it in R.U.R., but Merriam-Webster reports that his brother Josef suggested the name from robota.
resolvedprobableexact word
Does robot literally mean orphan?
No. Robot descends immediately from Czech compulsory labor. Orphan belongs to a remote comparative family around transferred status, dependency, and bereavement; a distant root relationship is not a modern definition.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 1
RANK 3GRADE Aexact ranked word
Robot named forced labor before machinery.
The machine word begins in Czech robota: compulsory labor, corvée, or drudgery.
043
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary8 CLAIM LINKS
Robot — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗etymological dictionary3 CLAIM LINKS
robota — Słownik etymologiczny
University of Warsaw Editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗digitized primary source1 CLAIM LINKS
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama
Karel Čapek; translated by Paul Selver / 1923
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗053
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The photographed English title page prints the plural headword in “Rossum's Universal Robots.”
robot / robot / 1923
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodramaexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use record
robot / robot / 1922
Robot — Word Historyexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus
Source-reported coinage context in R.U.R.
robota / robot / 1920
Robot — Word Historyattested-form prefix / OPEN RECORD ↗06
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