robotten

Robotten is the Danish definite form of the noun robot, meaning “the robot.” In Danish, the definite singular is commonly formed by adding the suffix -ten to the indefinite form, so robot becomes robotten. The base noun robot is borrowed from the Czech word robota, a term popularized by Karel Čapek in the 1920 play R.U.R. and later adopted into many languages to refer to a mechanical or autonomous helper.

In other Scandinavian languages, the corresponding definite singular forms differ. In Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål, the usual definite singular is roboten (the robot). Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian also have distinct plural forms for the pluralized noun: Danish robotter, Swedish robotar, and Norwegian roboter.

Usage and meaning are straightforward: robotten denotes a specific robot that has been previously mentioned or is known from context. The term itself is not a distinct technical concept beyond the standard word for a robot; it functions as the definite article incorporated into the noun.

Related terms and concepts in the same language area include the plural nouns for robots (robotter in Danish, robotar in Swedish, roboter in Norwegian) and the broader fields of robotics and automation. The word robot, from Čapek’s coinage, has since become widely used in many languages to describe automated machines, from industrial robots to social or service robots.