Automaton

Definitions

1. A machine or robot designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions.
2. A person who acts like a machine or robot, often defined as having a monotonous lifestyle and lacking in emotion.
3. A formal system, such as a finite-state machine or cellular automaton.
4. A toy in the form of a mechanical figure.
5. The self-acting power of the muscular and nervous systems, by which movement is effected without intelligent determination.
   dated

Equivalents

Examples

“Nick had heard her play⟳ through the very beginning of it a dozen times, until he was screaming at her in his head to go on. Well, now she did, watching her own⟳ hands busying up and down the keyboard as if they were astonishing automata that she had wound up and set⟳ in motion, in perfect synchrony, to produce⟳ this silvery flow⟳ of sound⟳.”

“Due to her strict adherence to her daily schedule⟳, Jessica was becoming more and more convinced that she was an automaton.”

“July 12, 1816, Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval Monticello A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'til the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have⟳ no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.”

“—to the young man who filled a place⟳ at table as the permitted, not invited, the unrewarded labourer for an ungrateful taskmaster—the handsome dangler, allowed to join⟳ in a quadrille, on the condition of being an automaton before and after—the listener to young members, and old women of rank—the person who must bore nobody, but whom every body had a right to bore!”

CEFR level