AUTOMATIC • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Automatic

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˌɔtəmˈætɪk/ /ˌɔtoʊmˈætɪk/ Listen

adjective

Automatical, Automatic adj.

1.

Having an inherent power of action or motion. "Nothing can be said to be automatic."

2.

Pertaining to, or produced by, an automaton; of the nature of an automaton; self-acting or self-regulating under fixed conditions; operating with minimal human intervention; esp. applied to machinery or devices in which certain things formerly or usually done by hand are done by the machine or device itself; as, the automatic feed of a lathe; automatic gas lighting; an automatic engine or switch; an automatic mouse; an automatic transmission. The opposite of manual. Note: Narrower terms are: autoloading(prenominal), semiautomatic; automated, machine-controlled, machine-driven; self-acting, self-activating, self-moving, self-regulating; self-locking; self-winding. Also See: mechanical.

3.

(Physiol.) Not voluntary; not depending on the will; mechanical; controlled by the autonomic nervous system; without conscious control; as, automatic movements or functions. The opposite of voluntary.

Synonyms: reflex(prenominal), reflexive,involuntary "Unconscious or automatic reasoning."

4.

Like the unthinking functioning of a machine. "An automatic 'thank you'"

Synonyms: automaton-like, automatonlike, machinelike, machine-like, robotlike.

Automatic arts, such economic arts or manufacture as are carried on by self-acting machinery.

noun

automatic n.

1.

Light machine gun.

Synonyms: automatic rifle, machine rifle

2.

A pistol that will keep firing until the ammunition is gone or the trigger is released; as, a.45 automatic.

Synonyms: automatic pistol.

See images of 'Automatic'

Etymology of 'Automatic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Automatic" Quotes from Famous Books

... extreme precautions. Not a single object, not even a scrap of paper had been left there on the departure of the men at nine o'clock. Ashes in an old-fashioned fireplace in Roon's room suggested the destruction of tell-tale papers. Everything had vanished. A large calibre automatic revolver, all cartridges unexploded, was found in Paul's coat pocket. In another pocket, lying loose, were a few bank notes and some silver, amounting all ...

— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... of pistol and it affords excellent training for hand and eye. Avoid, however, the very high power modern firearms—that kind that "shoot today and kill next week," as there is too much danger of reaching some one that is out of sight. The same may be said of the automatic pistol which fills too large a circle with ...

— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... dwelling. Arabesques and reproductions of subjects from Nature are executed with a clearness and precision such as we are accustomed to admire on the lacquered-ware cabinets and bronzes of Japan. With us, wood has almost completely disappeared as a glyptic material. The introduction of mindless automatic machinery has starved out the chisel. Mouldings are run out for us by the mile, like iron from the rolling-mill or tunes from a musical-box, as cheap and as soulless. Forms innately beautiful thus become almost hateful, because hackneyed. If all the women we see were at once faultlessly beautiful ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... eradicated; the talents and vigor of their exceptional negroes and mulattoes, on the other hand, they sought to foster by special training and rewards. But the prevalence of slavery which aided them in the one policy hampered them in the other, for it made the rewards arbitrary instead of automatic and it restricted the scope of the laborers' employments and of their ambitions as well. The device of hiring slaves to themselves, which had an invigorating effect here and there in the towns, could find little application in the country; ...

— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... warfare were not confined to attempts to destroy hostile vessels by means of his submarine vessel. He made several attacks upon the enemy by means of automatic torpedoes, none of which met with complete success. One of these attacks, made at Philadelphia in December, 1777, furnished the incident upon which is founded the well-known ballad of the "Battle of ...

— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com