language
English borrowed the word "robot" from a 1920 Czech play, where it originally described something quite different from a machine.
Karel Čapek's 1920 play 'R.U.R.' (Rossum's Universal Robots) coined the word from the Czech 'robota,' meaning forced labor or drudgery, the kind of grinding work serfs once owed to landlords. In the play, the 'robots' were artificial biological humans manufactured to work as a servant class, not the metal machines the word conjures today — the shift toward robots-as-machines came later as the word spread into English and other languages.
The other two options are simply invented distractions; the word has nothing to do with pets or dance, and its documented origin is specifically tied to labor and servitude.
The play's plot, in which the artificial workers eventually rebel against their creators, made 'R.U.R.' one of the earliest and most influential works of science fiction to explore the idea of a created workforce turning on humanity.
language
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