autonomous
/ɔˈtɑnəməs/adjective
autonomous is spelled A-U-T-O-N-O-M-O-U-S. The wrong spelling people search most is automous: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 103 of all searches for the word. Autonomous is an adjective meaning “Governing itself independently”.
How many letters and syllables are in autonomous?
| Letters | 10: A-U-T-O-N-O-M-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.1 times per million words; the 8,918th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, automous, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell autonomous?
Autonomous is spelled A-U-T-O-N-O-M-O-U-S. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 86 of the searches for autonomous in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is autonomous?
Autonomous appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce autonomous?
- UK /ɔːˈtɒnəməs/
- US /ɔˈtɑnəməs/
- US /ɑˈtɑnəməs/
Autonomous has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-autonomous.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with autonomous?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as autonomous from its last stressed vowel (/ɑnəməs/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of autonomous
- more autonomous comparative
- most autonomous superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does autonomous mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Governing itself independently.
an autonomous territory
- 2
Of or relating to a territory that governs itself independently.
- 3
Sentient; self-aware.
- 4
Acting on one's own or independently; of a child, acting without being governed by parental or guardian rules.
- 5
Used with no subject, indicating an unknown or unspecified agent; used in similar situations as the passive in English (the difference being that the theme in the English passive construction is the subject, while in the Celtic autonomous construction the theme is the object and there is no subject).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Autonomous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense self-governing – see also independent, autonomic:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.