auto | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

50 entries found.

1899 as shortened form of automobile (q.v.). Similar evolution yielded French, German auto.

by 1933 in photography, originally of enlargers, by 1942 of lenses, from auto- + focus (n.).

also autoerotic, 1898, coined by Havelock Ellis from auto- + erotic. Related: Auto-eroticism (1898). The opposite is allo-erotic.

By "auto-erotism" I mean the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or indirectly, from another person. [Ellis, "Auto-Erotism," in The Alienist and Neurologist, April 1898]

automaker (n.)

"manufacturer of automobiles," 1925, from auto "automobile" + maker.

autocade (n.)

1922, from auto "automobile" + ending from cavalcade.

autosuggestion (n.)

also auto-suggestion, 1879, a hybrid from auto- + suggestion. The idea, and probably the model for the word, are from French.

autogamy (n.)

"self-fertilization," 1877, from auto- "self" + -gamy "fertilization." Related: Autogamous (1880).

autolatry (n.)

"self-worship," 1620s (in Latinate form autolatria), from auto- "self" + -latry "worship of."

autosome (n.)

"an ordinary (non-sex) chromosome," 1906, coined by U.S. cytologist T.H. Montgomery from auto- + -some (3)). Related: Autosomal.

auto-

word-forming element meaning "self, one's own, by oneself, of oneself" (and especially, from 1895, "automobile"), from Greek autos, reflexive pronoun, "self, same," which is of unknown origin. It also was a common word-forming element in ancient Greek, as in modern English, but very few of the old words have survived the interval. In Greek, as a word-forming element, auto- had the sense of "self, one's own, of oneself ('independently'); of itself ('natural, native, not made'); just exactly; together with." Before a vowel, it became aut-; before an aspirate, auth-. In Greek it also was used as a prefix to proper names, as in automelinna "Melinna herself." The opposite prefix would be allo-.

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