driverless
Americanadjective
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not having a human driver in control.
The horse became startled and the now driverless horse-drawn carriage ran into a car.
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without a human operator.
driverless machinery.
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(of a vehicle) navigated and maneuvered by a computer without a need for human control or intervention under a range of driving situations and conditions.
a driverless car.
Etymology
Origin of driverless
First recorded in 1840–1850
Explanation
If you spot a car cruising down the road without a human at the wheel, don’t worry — it's not a ghost driving, it's probably just a driverless vehicle. The word driverless means exactly what it sounds like: a vehicle with no one driving it. The word combines driver, someone who drives or controls movement, with the suffix -less, which means "without." Driverless vehicles use technology like sensors and computers to "see" the road and make decisions without a person behind the wheel.
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.
Driverless cars are becoming more common in some California cities, but when the autonomous vehicles violate traffic laws, police haven't been able to ticket them - until now.
From BBC • May 2, 2026
Driverless cars haven’t always obeyed the rules of the road but, unlike vehicles with humans behind the wheel, they’ve gotten away with it.
From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026
Driverless cabs are on the verge of becoming ubiquitous, having been trained by artificial intelligence to handle almost any situation on the road and, more importantly, to beat human drivers in terms of safety.
From Barron's • Feb. 24, 2026
Driverless taxis are rapidly becoming a familiar sight—sometimes even a tourist attraction—in tech-friendly American cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 15, 2025
Driverless cars: This month, Mercedes-Benz became the first carmaker to get permission to sell or lease autonomous vehicles to the public in California, Reuters reports.
From New York Times • Jun. 13, 2023
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.
