HOW TO PRONOUNCE
autonomous
/ɔˈtɑnəməs/
Press play to hear how to pronounce autonomous.
American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
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Give the second syllable the main beat.
Use four syllables with primary stress on the vowel after t. Keep the two later vowels light, rather than giving the final mous an equally strong beat.
4 syllables · Stress on syllable 2
TRY SAYING
“The team operates as an autonomous unit.”
APG practice sentence · CC BY-SA 4.0
CMU Pronouncing Dictionary ↗What does autonomous mean?
adjective
- Governing itself independently.
- Of or relating to a territory that governs itself independently.
- Sentient; self-aware.
More meanings (2)
adjective
- Acting on one's own or independently; of a child, acting without being governed by parental or guardian rules.
- Used with no subject, indicating an unknown or unspecified agent; used in similar situations as the passive in English (the difference being that the theme in the English passive construction is the subject, while in the Celtic autonomous construction the theme is the object and there is no subject).
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/ɔˈtɑnəməs/
Pronunciation used in the listening tip.
CMU Pronouncing Dictionary ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
No more than a century ago, even by American law, the most sentimental in the world, the husband was the head of the family firm, lordly and autonomous.
Also in September the government broke up many state farms into smaller, more autonomous cooperative units in an attempt to increase worker incentives and boost depressed food production levels.
More book examples (3)
University Education: Should universities and colleges supported by public funds be controlled by independent and autonomous powers, or should they be controlled directly by central state authority?
Portugal is hereby authorized to maintain the facility afforded to the Autonomous Regions of Azores and Madeira to benefit from an interest-free credit facility with the Banco de Portugal under the terms established by existing Portuguese law.
If the population of Edinburgh were a living, autonomous body, it would arise like one man and make night hideous with arson; the builders and their accomplices would be driven to work, like the Jews of yore, with the trowel in one hand and the defensive cutlass in the other; and as soon as one of these masonic wonders had been consummated, right-minded iconoclasts should fall thereon and make an end of it at once.