autonym

[ aw-tuh-nim ]
See synonyms for autonym on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Also called endonym .Anthropology. the name that an ethnic, racial, or social group uses for itself or its language: “Inuit” is the autonym for a large subgroup of Indigenous Arctic peoples.: Compare exonym (def. 2), ethnonym.

  2. a person's real name: To all who replied to my post—if you send me your autonyms by email I'll gladly acknowledge your help in my upcoming article.: Compare pseudonym.

  1. a book published under the real name of the author.

  2. Biology. a trinomial of a subspecies of animal or variety of plant whose final epithet repeats the species name, as in Homo sapiens sapiens (modern human) or Pinus nigra nigra (European black pine): automatically created for the original type the first time another subspecies is named.: Compare tautonym.

Origin of autonym

1
First recorded in 1865–70; aut- + -onym

Words Nearby autonym

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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