automatic
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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9 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "automatic", 9-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "automatic" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "automatic" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
automatic is anEnglishadj. It means: Capable of operating without external control or intervention. Pronounced /ˌɔː.təˈmæt.ɪk/. It ranks #3,862 in English word frequency. Often confused with automaton and automation.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | automatic |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˌɔː.təˈmæt.ɪk/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #3,862 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for automatic is 9 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˌɔː.təˈmæt.ɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,862 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for automatic, with forms such as "atuomatic", "auotmatic", and "autmoatic". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "automaton", "automation", "aromatic", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewder.? Proto-Indo-European *sóder.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewder. Ancient Greek αὖ (aû) Ancient Greek τόν (tón)? Ancient Greek αὐτός (autós) Ancient Greek αὐτο- (auto-) Proto-Indo-European *men- Proto-Indo-European *mn… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is automatic, spelled A-U-T-O-M-A-T-I-C, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Capable of operating without external control or intervention.
- 2Done out of habit or without conscious thought.
- 3Necessary, inevitable, prescribed by logic, law, etc.
- 4Firing continuously as long as the trigger is pressed until ammunition is exhausted.
- 5An autoloader; a semi-automatic or self-loading pistol, as opposed to a revolver or other manually actuated handgun, which fires one shot per pull of the trigger; distinct from machine guns.
- 6Automatically added to and removed from the stack during the course of function calls.
- 7Having one or more finite-state automata.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewder.? Proto-Indo-European *sóder.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewder. Ancient Greek αὖ (aû) Ancient Greek τόν (tón)? Ancient Greek αὐτός (autós) Ancient Greek αὐτο- (auto-) Proto-Indo-European *men- Proto-Indo-European *mn̥tós Proto-Hellenic *mətós Ancient Greek αὐτόμᾰτος (autómătos) Ancient Greek αὐτόμᾰτον (autómăton)der. Classical Latin automatum New Latin automaticusbor. English automatic Borrowed from New Latin automaticus, from Classical Latin automatum (“automaton”) + -icus (adjectival suffix), from Ancient Greek αὐτόματον (autómaton), neuter of αὐτόματος (autómatos, “self-moving, moving of oneself, self-acting, spontaneous”), from αὐτός (autós, “self, myself”) + μέμαα (mémaa, “to wish eagerly, strive, yearn, desire”). The original pronunciation, apparently with stress on the second syllable, was after the ultimate Greek base.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: atuomatic,auotmatic,autmoatic,autoamtic,automaitc,automatci,automaticc,automattic,autommatic,automtaic,auttomatic,uatomatic
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for automatic
Misspelling Variants of "automatic"
Frequency rank: #3,862 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: