The term, as you'd discover if you look it up in a dictionary that includes etymology, is derived from the Czech term robotnik. That term was coined in a 1920 play by Karle Capek, R.U.R. Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti that was translated into English as R.U.R, or Rossum's Universal Robots. You can read the entire text of the play online for free here.
In the play, the robots were envisioned as looking perfectly human, more like Star Trek's Data than the droids in Star Wars. They eventually develop human feelings and revolt against the humans who have enslaved them.
A decade ago, Science Diction analyzed the concept of the robot in the literary imagination as more akin to more organic forms of artificial life imagined in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or stories of a golem. In such stories, the creature proves less idealized than the creator had hoped and proves impossible to control.
The term "robot" is also the product of literary revision and collaboration. Science Diction reports: "In early drafts of his play, Čapek named these creatures labori, after the Latina root for labor, but worried that the term sounded too 'bookish.' At the suggestion of his brother, Josef, Čapek ultimately opted for roboti, or in English, robots."
It also adds this note about the untimely demise of the author. He was just 48 when he died of the flu in 1938. Had he survived the illness, he may not have survived the Gestapo. There was a warrant out for him due to the "subversive" tone of his writings that took a dim view of rise of the Nazi party.
But he has achieved a kind of immortality in coining a term that has been at the heart of many works of science fiction and applied to everyday tech ranging from manufacturing to household tasks like vacuuming.
