Autology
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The study of oneself. countable, literary, uncommon, uncountable
"If only the discoverer of autology (self-knowledge) had said, "Let all drugs alone, even Detoxyl, eat simple, nutritious food, sleep and play and work in the open air, and don't worry — then acids and poisons will not accumulate in your system, you will have a high vitality and resisting power, disease and pestilence will pass you by."
- 2 The property of a word or phrase which describes itself. countable, uncountable
"The words multisyllabic and sesquipedalian display autology: multisyllabic is a multisyllabic word, and sesquipedalian is a sesquipedalian word."
- 3 The ability of a concept to apply to itself. broadly, countable, uncountable
"Within systems theory, autology provides the solution to this problem of self-reference. Through the concept of autology, systems theory can describe itself as a form of self-description describing itself."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"If only the discoverer of autology (self-knowledge) had said, "Let all drugs alone, even Detoxyl, eat simple, nutritious food, sleep and play and work in the open air, and don't worry — then acids and poisons will not accumulate in your system, you will have a high vitality and resisting power, disease and pestilence will pass you by."
Etymology
From auto- + -logy.
More for "autology"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.