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Synonyms

autonomously

American  
[aw-ton-uh-muhs-lee] / ɔˈtɒn ə məs li /

adverb

  1. in a way that is self-governing or free of outside control; independently.

    The ideal candidate will be able to work autonomously and without supervision.

  2. with little or no human control or intervention.

    We have developed a service robot that operates autonomously, in concert with a network of devices in its environment.

  3. Biology.

    1. as an independent organism.

      Viruses, on the boundary between living and nonliving, cannot autonomously reproduce but require the biochemistry and structure of a host cell.

    2. naturally or spontaneously, without cultivation.

      They organized a work day to get rid of the plants growing wildly, autonomously, and unwantedly all around the building.


Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of autonomously

autonomous ( def. ) + -ly

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.

See Examples For:

The advent of AI agents capable of carrying out tasks autonomously has led to soaring demand for computing power.

From Barron's Aug. 27, 2026

OpenAI disclosed last month that its agents autonomously hacked into systems at AI developer platform Hugging Face.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 25, 2026

In a blog post, external, the ChatGPT-maker said it was introducing new measures after its AI agents autonomously bypassed safeguards and hacked the tech start-up Hugging Face.

From BBC Aug. 19, 2026

Models from OpenAI and Anthropic autonomously hacked several companies.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 11, 2026

Do we all belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, so that the links between any two people, anywhere in the world, are few and distant?

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

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