Automatic

How to spell automatic

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce automatic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does automatic mean?

1. adjectiveWorking by itself with little or no direct human control, or happening as a natural and inevitable result.
2. nounA vehicle with a transmission that changes gears by itself, or a firearm that reloads and fires continuously.

Automatic in a sentence

• adjective

  The heating system has an automatic timer that switches it off at night.

• noun

  She learned to drive in an automatic because she disliked using a clutch.

• adjective

  Renewing the subscription was automatic unless she cancelled it first.

• noun

  The rental company only had an automatic available that weekend.

Where does automatic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek automatos, meaning 'acting of itself' or 'self-moving'. It was built from autos, meaning 'self', joined to a root related to thinking and acting, so the whole word literally described something that moves or works on its own without being pushed. The Greek sense passed into Latin as automatus and reached English in the 1700s, originally describing self-operating machines and mechanical figures. By the nineteenth century it broadened to mean any process that happens spontaneously or without conscious effort. The familiar 'auto-' element still shows up in relatives like 'automobile' and 'autonomy', a reminder that the heart of the word is the idea of self-action.

How the word is built

• auto- (self)
• mat (from Greek -matos: thinking, willing, acting)
• -ic (adjective suffix)