autonomy
English
[edit]
Etymology
[edit]Etymology tree
Borrowed from Ancient Greek αὐτονομῐ́ᾱ (autonomĭ́ā, “freedom to use its own laws, independence”), from αὐτόνομος (autónomos, “living under one's own laws, independent”) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, “-y, -ia”, nominal suffix). By surface analysis, auto- (“self”) + -nomy (“a system of rules or laws about a particular field”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɔːˈtɒn.ə.mi/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ɔˈtɑ.nə.mi/
- (cot–caught merger, General American, Atlantic Canada) IPA(key): /ɑˈtɑ.nə.mi/
Audio (California): (file)
- (Canada, Boston, Maine) IPA(key): /ɒˈtɒn.ə.mi/
- (Australia) IPA(key): /oːˈtɔn.ə.mi/
- (New Zealand) IPA(key): [oːˈtɔ̟n.ə.mi]
- Rhymes: -ɒnəmi
- Homophone: autonymy
Noun
[edit]autonomy (countable and uncountable, plural autonomies)
- (uncountable) The right or condition of self-government; freedom to act or function independently.
- Antonyms: dependency, heteronomy, servitude, nonautonomy, inoperability
- Coordinate term: sovereignty
- 1951, Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia[1], Verso, published 2005, page 200:
- But while assiduously dismissing any though of its own autonomy and proclaiming its victims its judges, it outdoes, in its veiled autocracy, all the excesses of autonomous art.
- 2025 May 26, Joshua Nelken-Zitser, “I 'micro-retired' in my 30s by investing every dollar from my side income. It sounds almost too simple to be true, but it works.”, in Business Insider[2], archived from the original on 4 July 2026:
- Financial independence and micro retirement have come to represent the autonomy I've created for myself, which is a powerful feeling.
- (government, countable) A self-governing country or region.
- (philosophy, uncountable) The capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision.
- (mechanics, uncountable) The capacity of a system to make a decision about its actions without the involvement of another system or operator.
- Antonyms: heteronomy, incapacity
- 1992, Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, Pantheon Books, page 41:
- ...[T]he fact that a scientific theory finds applications to a wide variety of different phenomena does not imply anything about the autonomy of this theory from deeper physical laws.
- (Christianity, uncountable) The status of a church whose highest-ranking bishop is appointed by the patriarch of the mother church, but which is self-governing in all other respects. Compare autocephaly.
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]self-government
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capacity for individual decision
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in mechanics
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References
[edit]- “autonomy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “autonomy”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Hellenic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms borrowed from Ancient Greek
- English terms suffixed with -nomy
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *h₂ew
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *nem- (distribute)
- English terms prefixed with auto- (self)
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *só
- English 4-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɒnəmi
- Rhymes:English/ɒnəmi/4 syllables
- English terms with homophones
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Government
- en:Philosophy
- en:Mechanics
- en:Christianity
