🇺🇸
/ˈɑː.t̬ə.mæts/
🇺🇸
/ˈɑː.t̬ə.mæts/
🇬🇧
/ˈɑː.t̬ə.mæts/
🇬🇧
/ˈɑː.t̬ə.mæts/
Plural
automats
An automat is a type of restaurant where food and drinks are served through coin- or token-operated vending machines — customers select meals behind glass windows, insert money, and retrieve their items without interacting with staff. Think of it as a dining room full of snack-sized vending machines, popular in US cities like New York during the early-to-mid 20th century.
In the 1940s, New Yorkers often grabbed coffee and pie from a bustling downtown automat.
The museum's exhibit includes a restored 1930s automat with original chrome dispensers.
She wrote a nostalgic short story set in a quiet, nearly empty automat on a rainy Tuesday.
Unlike modern fast-casual spots, the old automat required exact change and offered no substitutions.
We spent an hour photographing the colorful, retro-futuristic signage outside the last surviving automat.
auto-
Comes from the Greek prefix 'autos' (αὐτός), meaning 'self' or 'by oneself'. It conveys independence, self-operation, or lack of external control. Examples include automatic, automobile, autobiography, autonomy, automate.
mat
Not a true etymological root in the classical sense; 'mat' here is a clipped form of 'machine' or 'mechanism', but more accurately, 'automat' is a loanword from German 'Automat' (itself derived from Greek 'auto-' + '-mat' as a suffix modeled on Greek '-matos', from 'matos' meaning 'capable of' or 'having the nature of'). In English, 'automat' entered in the early 20th century as a direct borrowing referring to self-service restaurants. The '-mat' element reflects mechanized operation — not related to the English word 'mat' (floor covering). Examples include automat, automatism, automaton.