#7: Robot

Definition:

: a machine in the form of a human being that performs the mechanical functions of a human being but lacks emotions and sensitivity

About the Word:

Robot comes from the title of a play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek, R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots, published in 1920. Čapek's play is a bleak look at a society populated with mechanical workers, the titular robots which have been created from synthetic matter. The play was quite popular, and within a few years the word had made the leap across the Atlantic, and was being used in English. By the end of the decade robotic (1928) had also been adopted.

Example:

"Robots to relieve mankind from toil" — Dallas Morning News (headline), 15 October 1922