spontaneously

American  

[spon-tey-nee-uhs-lee] / spɒnˈteɪ ni əs li /

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.

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Other Word Forms

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

Etymology

Origin of spontaneously

spontaneous ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

When two instances of Claude 4 were placed in unconstrained dialogue with each other, both spontaneously began asserting they were conscious.

From The Wall Street Journal

The post was followed by myriad comments in which fans spontaneously recalled Gerard’s work as Buck Rogers and shared the influence he had on their lives.

From Los Angeles Times

In the latest study, the team set out to solve a more difficult challenge: preventing or curing diabetes driven by autoimmunity, where the immune system spontaneously targets and kills the body's own islet cells.

From Science Daily

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.

From 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".

From BBC

Related Words

• automatically
• immediately
• unconsciously