'automate' originates from French and Modern Latin influences, ultimately from Greek 'automatos' where 'auto-' meant 'self' and '-matos' conveyed 'moving' or 'acting of itself'.

'automate' entered English from French 'automate' (meaning an automaton) in the 17th–18th centuries; later, the verb sense 'to make automatic' developed in the 20th century with the rise of machines and control systems.

Initially it referred to a self-moving device or automaton; over time it evolved to include the verb sense 'to make a process operate automatically' (and the noun sense broadened to mean any automatic machine).