The man who invented the word robot almost named them “Labori” instead. Close call:

As a word, robot is a relative newcomer to the English language. It was the brainchild of a brilliant Czech playwright, novelist and journalist named Karel ?apek (1880-1938) who introduced it in his 1920 hit play, R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots.

Robot is drawn from an old Church Slavonic word, robota, for “servitude,” “forced labor” or “drudgery.” The word, which also has cognates in German, Russian, Polish and Czech, was a product of the central European system of serfdom by which a tenant’s rent was paid for in forced labor or service.

Science Daily has the rest of the tale and saddening postscript involving the Nazis.

[img]