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"It was my preferred entertainment when I was a kid, so when I set out to be a writer, it was perfectly natural that I should write the sort of stories that I used to enjoy reading."
- John Brunner

Robotrix  
  A robot, female in appearance.  

As far as I know, the earliest use in a science fiction story (see below for caveat).

Glare lit up the shape of a middle-aged black man in a topcoat, neat, colorful tie, his face aristocratic, each feature starkly outlined. The black man paced about across the oil streaked cement, his arms folded, an absent expression on his face. Evidently he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship. "Call me," the black man said. Slowly and firmly, but also a little loudly, he said. "These places, these coin-operated robot gas stations, are downers late at night.
Technovelgy from Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Doubleday in 1974
Additional resources -

The word appeared in Science Fiction Digest in 1933, in a review by F.J. Ackerman of the film Metropolis:

Rotwang, inventor and aristocrat, learned of the meetings and planned to subdue them. For this, he created a robotrix, a mechanical woman, and, by kidnapping Mary, and with the use of amazing machinery, made of the steel girl a perfect double for the maid of the lower levels. This automan was to teach servility to them but instead it taught hate and revolt.

The term fembot is also used; this term first appeared in 1976 in The Bionic Woman, an American television series.

Compare to the manufactured wife from A Wife Manufactured to Order (1895) by Alice W. Fuller, the psychophonic nurse from The Psychophonic Nurse (1928) by David H. Keller, the teleoperated robot surrogate from The Robot and the Lady (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman, the mechanical bride from The Mechanical Bride (1954) by Fritz Leiber, the maid-robot from The Midas Plague (1954) by Frederik Pohl and the Nanny from Nanny (1955) by Philip K. Dick.

Writers use gynoid to describe a feminine gendered robot; see the entry for gynoid from Divine Endurance (1984) by Gwyneth Jones.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

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