How did the word robot come from Czech?

The word robot

Slovo robot

1920. Karel Čapek's play R.U.R., published in 1920 and first staged in 1921, is about artificial workers who rise against the people who made them.

Where: Czechia

What happened

Karel Čapek's play R.U.R., published in 1920 and first staged in 1921, is about artificial workers who rise against the people who made them. Čapek called them roboti, from robota, forced labour — a word his brother, the painter Josef Čapek, suggested. It went round the world within a few years and is one of the few Czech words every language knows.

Say it

Slovo robot vymyslel Josef Čapek.

The word robot was thought up by Josef Čapek.

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