Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Autonomy
/ɔːˈtɒnəmi/noun
The right or the capacity to govern oneself and make one's own decisions.
The Greek roots
αὐτός
autós
self, same
νόμος
nómos
law, custom
Literally: “self-law”
The story of the word
In Greek the word is political and concrete: a city was αὐτόνομος when it lived under its own laws rather than under someone's garrison, and fifth-century treaties argue at length about which cities qualified. Kant moved it inward in the 1780s, making autonomy the will giving itself the moral law, so the modern sense of personal independence follows him more than Thucydides. Νόμος also gives economy, the law of the household, and astronomy.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1620s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
economyastronomyautocracyantinomy
In a sentence
The region kept its own courts and taxes, a real autonomy rather than a paper one.