bot

noun

1. The larva of a botfly, which infests the skin of various mammals, producing warbles, or the nasal passage of sheep, or the stomach of horses.

   “One deer, later found to be heavily parasitized by bots, suffered severe vomiting attacks during the early spring.”

   “Jerry prepared a glass jar with sterilized sand to act as a nursery for his pulsating bot, but despite his tender ministrations the larva dried out and died before it could encase itself in a pupal sheath.”

2. (British, slang)The bottom or backside.
3. (informal)A physical robot.

   “I stared at the bot and recognized her for the first time. She was me.”

   “As he guided the bot, Andrews reminisced about his younger days in Wyoming, when he had witnessed a mishandled load of wheat puff out a dusty fog.”

   “The bot juddered to a halt, as the whole lower segment of its power arm darkened.”

4. A piece of software designed to perform a task (often a minor but repetitive one) automatically or on command, especially when operating with the appearance of a (human) user profile or account.

   “The goals of IRC bots vary widely, such as automatically kicking other users off or more nefarious things like spamming other IRC users. In this paper, a free standing IRC bot is presented that monitors an IRC channel for commands from a particular user and responds accordingly.”

   “He is particularly good at creating web robots, which are also called bots. A bot is software that searches for certain kinds of websites and then automatically does something — good or bad — on each site. Google uses bots to search and index websites.”

   “Twitter bots can leverage Twitter′s text message support to allow users to accomplish tasks from their cell phones. You could consider Twitter accounts that are simply an automated import of blog′s RSS feed a Twitter bot.”

   “Some bots help refresh your Facebook feed or figure out how to rank Google search results; other bots impersonate humans and carry out devastating DDoS attacks. […] Overall, bots—good and bad—are responsible for 52 percent of web traffic, according to a new report by the security firm Imperva, which issues an annual assessment of bot activity online.”

5. A computer-controlled character in a video game, especially a multiplayer one.

   “Next, you are placed in the world of RuneScape, which is similar to our own, with trees, grass, buildings, animals, and of course, people. In RuneScapes shops and banks there are bots' (computer-controlled players).”

   “Most games offer both single player mode, in which a player competes against computer rivals—bots—and a multiplayer mode, which is a contest among people only.”

6. (derogatory, slang)A supremely unskilled player.

   “"That lobby was bronze negative 10!" Aydan joked on-stream, noting how easy it felt for his squad. "We got blessed with the lobby. It was such a bot lobby."”

7. (Internet, derogatory, often)A person with no ability to think for themselves; (by extension) an unintelligent or contemptible person.

   “The meaning of the word "bot" on Twitter/X seems to have shifted over time, with people originally using it to flag automated accounts, but now employing it to insult people they disagree with[.]”

8. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of beginning of tape.
9. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of Build–operate–transfer.
10. (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of Bǽh-oe-tu.

verb

1. (British, slang)To bugger.
2. (Australia, informal)To ask for and be given something with the direct intention of exploiting the thing’s usefulness, almost exclusively with cigarettes.

   “Can I bot a smoke?”

   “Jonny always bots off me. I just wish he’d get his own pack.”

3. To use a bot, or automated program.

   “Players caught botting will be banned from the server.”