one-armed bandit

English

WOTD – 10 November 2021

Etymology

An antique one-armed bandit.

From one-armed (“having only one arm”) +‎ bandit (“one who robs others in a lawless area, especially as part of a group; one who cheats others”), referring to the fact that the machine is operated by a single handle, and “steals” money from losing players.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌwʌnɑːmd ˈbændɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌwʌnɑɹmd ˈbændɪt/

• Audio (GA):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: one-armed ban‧dit

Noun

one-armed bandit (plural one-armed bandits)

1. (originally US, gambling) A gaming machine having a long arm-like handle at one side that a player pulls down to make reels spin; the player wins money or tokens when certain combinations of symbols line up on these reels.

Alternative forms

• one-arm bandit

Hypernyms

• fruit machine
• poker machine, pokie, pokie machine
• slot machine

Related terms

• multi-armed bandit

Translations

gaming machine having a long arm-like handle at one side that a player pulls down to make reels spin

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 老虎機／老虎机 (zh) (lǎohǔjī)

• Danish: enarmet tyveknægt c
• Dutch: eenarmige bandiet m
• Estonian: ühekäeline bandiit
• Finnish: yksikätinen rosvo (fi)
• French: bandit manchot (fr) m
• German: einarmiger Bandit m
• Hungarian: félkarú rabló (hu)
• Polish: jednoręki bandyta (pl) m
• Russian: однору́кий банди́т (ru) m (odnorúkij bandít)
• Spanish: please add this translation if you can
• Swedish: enarmad bandit (sv) c

Further reading

• slot machine on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “one-armed bandit, n.” under “one-armed, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2019.
• “one-armed bandit, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.