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.

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Other Word Forms

• nonautonomously
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of autonomously

autonomous ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

At education company Pearson, agents now autonomously handle queries about order statuses, refunds and lost access codes for its customers.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 20, 2026

The tool can find bugs lurking in decades-old code, according to Anthropic, and autonomously find ways to exploit them.

From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026

Facing that volume, Ukraine built a counterdrone industry from scratch: cheap, mass-produced interceptor drones costing $1,000 to $2,500 per unit, capable of destroying targets autonomously.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 13, 2026

According to Anthropic and partners, Mythos can autonomously scan vast amounts of code to find and chain together previously unknown security vulnerabilities in all kinds of software, from operating systems to web browsers.

From Barron's • Apr. 10, 2026

But a DNA double helix cannot autonomously make a copy of itself; otherwise, it might replicate without self-control.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• freely
• individually
• separately