spontaneously

[spon-tey-nee-uhs-lee]

adverb

1. naturally, without premeditation, prompting, or planning.

   The author recounts how a fully-fledged exchange market economy emerged spontaneously in his POW camp.

   These answers were given spontaneously to an open-ended question that did not offer response options.

2. in an impulsive way.

   It was so cold the other night that I spontaneously booked a trip to Turks and Caicos.

3. by a natural process or from an internal force or cause.

   A calf should normally stand spontaneously within 60–90 minutes of its birth.

   The symptoms resolved spontaneously within 6 months of onset.

Other Word Forms

• nonspontaneously adverb
• semispontaneously adverb
• subspontaneously adverb
• unspontaneously adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of spontaneously¹

spontaneous ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

At one point all of the magicians spontaneously do a show for one another, each of them taking part in a can-you-top-this series of illusions strung as close together as popcorn on a string.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

She's since "been on marches where people didn't know I was marching - and they were singing that song spontaneously".

Read more on BBC

"The range of PET-degrading enzymes spontaneously evolved in the deep sea provides models to be optimized in the lab for use in efficiently degrading plastics in treatment plants and, eventually, at home," says Duarte.

Read more on Science Daily

They spontaneously linked together to form chains that slithered through some obstacles and surrounded other objects.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Instead of meticulously recording tracks, records would be dashed off spontaneously.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• automatically 
• immediately 
• unconsciously