automate

What it means

1. ambitransitiveTo replace or enhance human labor with machines.

   Many offices still need to automate.

   2 more examples

   We saved time and money by automating the process.

   In the early '60's a Yoyodyne executive living near L.A. and located someplace in the corporate root-system above supervisor but below vice-president, found himself, at age 39, automated out of a job.

   1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 83

   Synonyms: robotize

In a sentence

Many offices still need to automate.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*h₂ew
2. Proto-Indo-European*tó-
3. Proto-Hellenic*autós
4. Proto-Indo-European*h₂ew
5. Ancient Greekαὖ (aû)
6. Ancient Greekτόν (tón)
7. Ancient Greekαὐτός (autós)
8. Ancient Greekαὐτο- (auto-)
9. Proto-Indo-European*men-
10. Proto-Indo-European*mn̥tós
11. Proto-Hellenic*mətós
12. Ancient Greekαὐτόμᾰτος (autómătos)
13. Ancient Greekαὐτόμᾰτον (autómăton)
14. Classical Latinautomatum
15. New Latinautomaticus
16. Englishautomatic
17. Englishautomationbf.
18. Englishautomate

Back-formation from automation.