Automate

How to spell automate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce automate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does automate mean?

1. verbTo convert a process or system so that it operates automatically with little or no human intervention.

Automate in a sentence

• The company plans to automate its payroll calculations next quarter.

• A simple script can automate the boring backup tasks every night.

Where does automate come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This verb traces back to the Greek automatos, meaning 'acting of itself' or 'self-moving', built from autos 'self' and a root tied to thinking, willing, or being inclined to act. The Greek idea passed into Latin and then into European languages, surfacing in English first as the adjective 'automatic' and the noun 'automaton', a self-operating machine. The word 'automate' itself is a comparatively modern back-formation: it was reverse-engineered from 'automation', a term popularised in the American car industry around 1948 to describe machinery that ran with little human intervention. So while the autos 'self' root is ancient, the everyday verb meaning 'to convert a process to automatic operation' is essentially a twentieth-century coinage. The spelling stays regular once you remember the silent linking is just the familiar prefix auto- followed by -mate.

How the word is built

• auto- (self)
• mat (from Greek matos: acting, willing)
• -ate (verb suffix)