Bot vs bought

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Grammarist

Bot and bought are commonly confused words that are pronounced in the same way but are spelled differently and have different meanings, which makes them homophones. We will examine the different meanings of the homophonic words bot and bought, the word origins of the terms, and some examples of their English usage in sentences.

Bot is an abbreviation and may signify a robot or a chatbot. A robot is a machine that completes repetitive tasks; a chatbot is a a computer program that simulates interactive human conversation, usually over the internet. Bot may also mean the larva of a botfly; the word bot to mean a larva or maggot has been in use since the 1500s. The definition of bot that most use today, meaning a robot or chatbot, came into use in the 2000s and comes from internet slang or teen slang.

Bought means to have purchased something. The word bought is the past tense of the word buy and is derived from the Old English word, bohte, which means to purchase something.

Examples

A Spanish marketing professional decided to try to stand out to potential employers during his job search by creating an interactive “resume bot” that essentially allows him to preemptively answer questions he would expect during a live in-person interview. (New York Post)

Bad bot traffic is on the rise as nations race to make COVID-19 vaccines available to their citizens and healthcare becomes increasingly digitized, forcing healthcare organizations to rethink their security and IT infrastructure strategies. (Health Tech Magazine)

Nearly a third of the cattle bought by JBS SA (JBSS3.SA) in the Brazilian Amazon state of Para came from ranches with “irregularities” such as illegal deforestation, prosecutors found in a 2020 audit of the world’s largest meatpacker released on Thursday. (Reuters)

While different courts have ordered the freezing of assets linked to Ms Oduah in Nigeria over her “humongous” indebtedness to banks, the four anonymously acquired London properties – alongside one other bought in her own name and two others bought in the name of her Nigerian-registered company – remain owned by her. (Premium Times Nigeria)