automaticity
Americannoun
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the quality or fact of being performed involuntarily or unconsciously, as a reflex, innate process, or ingrained habit.
This online math program helps students achieve automaticity in the basic facts of addition and subtraction.
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the fact or quality of starting or operating independently.
In this historical drama, everything happens with the automaticity of clockwork, as if the ending has already been written.
Etymology
Origin of automaticity
Explanation
If you've ever heard the term "practice makes perfect," it’s a most fitting description of automaticity, which means being able to do something effortlessly because you've practiced it so much. Think of automaticity as your brain flipping on the "easy mode" for tasks you’ve practiced repeatedly. It comes from the word automatic, which refers to actions performed effortlessly and without conscious thought. An example of automaticity is mastering a new skill, like riding a bike. At first, bike riding might require a lot of brain power and effort to accomplish, but after a a bit of practice, it becomes so easy that you don’t have to think about it at all.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“It’s not developing students’ automaticity and fluency with recognizing and decoding words, which is really a huge hindrance in the ultimate goal of reading, which is reading comprehension.”
From Washington Post ● Sep. 5, 2022
But there are situations where we should let automaticity take over.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 31, 2021
Others do not understand, and openly revel in the automaticity of the cloud.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 26, 2019
“There is a beautiful simplicity in the rhythmless dance of the octopus,” said the Journal of Experimental Biology, adding that the very automaticity of the process is “what makes the octopus truly unique.”
From Slate ● Mar. 1, 2018
Which particular one will be "appropriate" will depend on all sorts of subtle factors, hence the need of the control of the connection aeries by a purpose and the diminishing of the element of automaticity.
From How to Teach by Strayer, George Drayton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
