Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Automatic
/ˌɔːtəˈmætɪk/adjective
Working by itself once started, without a person guiding each step.
The Greek roots
αὐτός
autós
self
-ματος
-matos
striving, willing
Literally: “acting of its own will”
The story of the word
Homer's automatoi gates of Olympus swing open with nobody touching them, and the same adjective covers a plant that grows unsown and an event nobody arranged. The second half is not motion, whatever it looks like: it belongs to a verb of eagerness and will, kin to Latin mens. English took automatic in the 1700s for machinery, and the automatic pistol, the automatic transmission and the automatic teller followed, each one further from the will the word started with.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
automatonautomobileautonomyautomation
In a sentence
The lights are automatic, which is why they go out whenever anyone sits still.