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

See Examples For:

autonomously

Recent cyberattacks carried out autonomously by two rogue OpenAI artificial intelligence models raises an untested legal question: who is responsible when AI acts on its own?

From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026

The fears stem from the models’ abilities to autonomously find and exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities or go rogue.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026

But unlike the Falcon 9, the Long March 10B does not autonomously land on a ground pad or drone ship.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

Elon Musk’s Tesla robotaxis and Amazon-owned Zoox are shuttling customers autonomously, but are nowhere near the scale at which Waymo operates.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 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