1. A vending machine from which one can get food.
2. Where food is served from machines.
Snack bar where food is dispensed through coin-operated machines. Automats were popular in the US in the 1930s. The first was opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1902; the last closed in New York 1991.

1. A machine or apparatus that operates automatically: as an automatic firearm; an automatic transmission
2. A semiautomatic firearm
3. Audible

ETYM Latin from Greek; auto self + a root ma, man, to strive, think. Related to Mean.
1. A mechanism that can move automatically; SYN. robot, golem.
2. Someone who acts or responds in a mechanical or apathetic way; SYN. zombi, zombie.
Automatic mechanism, especially one effecting complex actions; robot; person who acts like a machine.
Mechanical figure imitating human or animal performance. Automatons are usually designed for esthetic appeal as opposed to purely functional robots. The earliest recorded automaton is an Egyptian wooden pigeon of 400 BC.

A fully automatic pistol; a small submachine gun; SYN. machine pistol.

A machine that can sense and react to input and cause changes in its surroundings with some degree of intelligence, ideally without human supervision. Although robots are often designed to mimic human movements in carrying out their work, they are seldom humanlike in appearance. Robots are commonly used in manufacturing products such as automobiles and computers. See also robotics.
Any computer-controlled machine that can be programmed to move or carry out work. Robots are often used in industry to transport materials or to perform repetitive tasks. For instance, robotic arms, fixed to a floor or workbench, may be used to paint machine parts or assemble electronic circuits. Other robots are designed to work in situations that would be dangerous to humans—for example, in defusing bombs or in space and deep-sea exploration.
Some robots are equipped with sensors, such as touch sensors and video cameras, and can make be programmed to make simple decisions based on the sensory data received.
Records of mechanical people and animals of all sizes go back more than 2,000 years. However, it was only with the incorporation of the computer that the true robot could be built.
A robot that plays guitar, and a cello, violin, and recorder robot ensemble, were marketed by a Japanese company 1989.

1. A machine whose operation is begun by dropping a coin into a slot
2. An originally coin-operated gambling machine that pays off according to the matching of symbols on wheels spun by a handle; also; an electronic version of this machine

A highly technical implementation; usually involving electronic hardware; SYN. mechanization, mechanisation, high technology, high-tech.
Control of machines by other machines, electronic devices, etc., instead of by human beings.
Widespread use of self-regulating machines in industry. Automation involves the addition of control devices, using electronic sensing and computing techniques, which often follow the pattern of human nervous and brain functions, to already mechanized physical processes of production and distribution; for example, steel processing, mining, chemical production, and road, rail, and air control.

The process of rendering something automatic.

In the arts, an act of creation which either allows chance to play a major role or which draws on the unconscious mind through free association, states of trance, or dreams. Automatism was fundamental to Surrealism, whose practitioners experimented with automatic writing and automatic drawing, producing streams of words or doodles from the unconscious. It has been taken up other abstract painters, such as the Canadian Automatistes, a group working in Montreal in the 1940s, and the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock.
Performance of actions without awareness or conscious intent. It is seen in sleepwalking and in some (relatively rare) psychotic states.
Any reaction that occurs automatically without conscious thought or reflection (especially the undirected behavior seen in psychomotor epilepsy).

ETYM Old Eng. scrit, Latin scriptum something written, from scribere, scriptum to write: cf. Old Fren. escript, escrit, French écrit. Related to Scribe, Scrip a writing.
1. A particular orthography or writing system.
2. A written version of a play or other dramatic composition; used in preparing for a performance; SYN. book, playscript.

1. To design to work automatically, without human intervention.
2. To robotize.

Alternate (chiefly British) spelling of automatize.

(Alternate spelling: automatise).
To make automatic; SYN. automate.