autonomy
UK/ɔːˈtɒn.ə.mi//ɔˈtɑ.nə.mi/
autonomy noun: the right or condition of self-government; freedom to act or function independently.
Noun
autonomy (countable and uncountable, plural autonomies)
- The right or condition of self-government; freedom to act or function independently.
- 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.1951, Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, Verso, published 2005, page 200
- Financial independence and micro retirement have come to represent the autonomy I've created for myself, which is a powerful feeling.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
- Antonyms:
- dependency, heteronomy, servitude, nonautonomy, inoperability
- A self-governing country or region.
- The capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision.
- The capacity of a system to make a decision about its actions without the involvement of another system or operator.
- ...[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.1992, Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, Pantheon Books, page 41
- Antonyms:
- heteronomy, incapacity
- 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.
autonomy meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
autonomy in Hindi
- self-government
- स्वायत्तता svāyattatā, स्वराज svarāj, आत्मशासन ātmaśāsan
- capacity for individual decision
- आत्मनिर्भरता ātmanirbhartā, स्वावलंब svāvlamb
autonomy in Tamil
- தன்னாளுமை, சுயாட்சி, தன்னாட்சி, தன்னாண்மை, தன்னியக்கம், தன்னாட்சி உரிமை
autonomy in Urdu
- autonomy, self-government
- خودمختاری xudmuxtārī
autonomy in Bengali
- স্বায়ত্তশাসন, স্বশাসন, স্বাধীন সিদ্ধান্ত গ্রহণের অধিকার
More languagesFewer languages
- autonomy in Telugu
- స్వయంప్రతిపత్తి svayampratipatti, స్వతంత్రత svatantrata
- autonomy in Malayalam
- ഭരണസ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം, സ്വയംഭരണം, സ്വയംഭരണാവകാശം, സ്വരാജ്യം
- autonomy in Kannada
- ತಮ್ಮಾಳ್ವಿಕೆ, ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಅಧಿಕಾರ, ಸ್ವಾಯತ್ತತೆ
- autonomy in Tagalog
- awtonomiya
- autonomy in Arabic
- اِسْتِقْلال istiqlāl, تَحَرُّر taḥarrur
- autonomy in Indonesian
- otonomi, kemandirian
- autonomy in Persian
- خودمختاری xodmoxtâri
- autonomy in Thai
- อัตตาณัติ, ภาวะอิสระ, การปกครองตนเอง
- autonomy in Vietnamese
- tự trị
Examples of autonomy in a sentence
- They don't seek outright independence, but rather greater autonomy.
- Third, local governments actively promoted cooperation with NGOs and GONGO autonomy.
- Walls not only protected towns, they also helped give them a sense of autonomy and identity.
Antonyms of autonomy
Forms of autonomy
| plural | autonomies |
|---|
Origin of autonomy
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”).
Words formed from autonomy
Words that rhyme with autonomy
Questions about autonomy
- What does autonomy mean?
- Autonomy means the right or condition of self-government; freedom to act or function independently.
- What is autonomy in Hindi?
- Autonomy in Hindi is स्वायत्तता (svāyattatā), स्वराज (svarāj), आत्मशासन (ātmaśāsan). See Autonomy meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is autonomy?
- Autonomy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce autonomy?
- Autonomy is pronounced /ɔːˈtɒn.ə.mi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of autonomy?
- The plural of autonomy is autonomies.
Words near autonomy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: autonomy (page history and authors); autonomy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); خودمختاری (Urdu) (page history and authors); autonomy (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); autonomy (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); autonomy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-autonomy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “autonomy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/autonomy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.