autonomous
Americanadjective
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Government.
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self-governing; independent; subject to its own laws only.
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pertaining to an autonomy, or a self-governing community.
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having autonomy; not subject to control from outside; independent.
a subsidiary that functioned as an autonomous unit.
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(of a machine, device, etc.) able to operate with little or no human control or intervention.
an autonomous vehicle.
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Biology.
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existing and functioning as an independent organism.
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growing naturally or spontaneously, without cultivation.
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adjective
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(of a community, country, etc) possessing a large degree of self-government
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of or relating to an autonomous community
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independent of others
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philosophy
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acting or able to act in accordance with rules and principles of one's own choosing
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(in the moral philosophy of Kant, of an individual's will) directed to duty rather than to some other end Compare heteronomous See also categorical imperative
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biology existing as an organism independent of other organisms or parts
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a variant spelling of autonomic
Other Word Forms
- autonomously adverb
- nonautonomous adjective
- nonautonomousness noun
Etymology
Origin of autonomous
First recorded in 1790–1800; from Greek autónomos “with laws of one's own, independent,” equivalent to auto- auto- 1 + nóm(os) “law, custom” + -os adjective suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei, there is concern over Pentagon demands to remove its self-imposed rules that prevent the company’s AI from being used for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
Anthropic opposes its AI systems being used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons without human intervention.
From Barron's
Lockheed stock was flat over that span, with investors worried that militaries would de-emphasize their manned fighter jets in favor of lower-cost autonomous systems.
From Barron's
The company is in discussion with officials in Culver City, Long Beach and Pasadena about bringing autonomous delivery to those communities.
From Los Angeles Times
And the explosion of autonomous coding in the tech workforce has created demand for new chips that can more efficiently handle complex AI-related tasks.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
