bot

also n.

1. The parasitic larva of a botfly.
2. bots (used with a sing. or pl. verb) A disease of mammals, especially cattle and horses, caused by infestation of the stomach or intestines with botfly larvae.

[Middle English, probably of Low German origin.]

bot² (bŏt)
n.
A software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom or IRC discussions.

[Short for ROBOT.]

(1) (roBOT) A program used on the Internet that performs a repetitive function such as posting a message to multiple newsgroups or searching for information or news. Bots are used to provide comparison shopping. Bots also keep a channel open on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The term is used for all variety of macros and intelligent agents that are Internet or Web related. See botnet, spambot and agent.

(2) (BOT) Beginning of tape. Similar to BOF.

Download Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to your iPhone/iTouch

1. stockbroker shorthand for bought, the opposite of SL for sold.

2. in finance, abbreviation for balance of trade.

3. In the mutual savings bank industry, abbreviation for board of trustees.

[common on IRC, MUD and among gamers; from “robot”]

1. An IRC or MUD user who is actually a program. On IRC, typically the robot provides some useful service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent random users from adopting nicks already claimed by others, and MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are ‘annoybots’, such as KissServ, which perform no useful function except to send cute messages to other people. Service bots are less common on MUDs; but some others, such as the ‘Julia’ bot active in 1990--91, have been remarkably impressive Turing-test experiments, able to pass as human for as long as ten or fifteen minutes of conversation.

2. An AI-controlled player in a computer game (especially a first-person shooter such as Quake) which, unlike ordinary monsters, operates like a human-controlled player, with access to a player's weapons and abilities. An example can be found at http://www.telefragged.com/thefatal/.

3. Term used, though less commonly, for a web spider. The file for controlling spider behavior on your site is officially the “Robots Exclusion File” and its URL is “http://<somehost>/robots.txt”)

Note that bots in all senses were ‘robots’ when the terms first appeared in the early 1990s, but the shortened form is now habitual.

---

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

bot	bot knife
Toner Bot	illuma bot