Autonomic
/ˌɔːtəˈnɒmɪk/adjective
Belonging to the nervous system that runs the heart, gut and glands without conscious control.
The Greek roots
Literally: “under its own law”
The story of the word
αὐτόνομος was a political word first. A Greek city was autonomous when it lived under its own laws rather than a garrison's, and Thucydides shows the term being traded back and forth between Athens and its allies as a bargaining chip. John Newport Langley moved it into physiology in 1898 for the system that governs the organs without consulting the will. The name overstates the independence, since the hypothalamus and the vagus keep a firm hand on the whole arrangement.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
Autonomic failure explains why he faints every time he stands up quickly.
Sweating, pupil size and gut motility are all autonomic and none of them take orders.