Heteronomous

//ˌhɛtəˈɹɒnəməs// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Arising from an external influence, force, or agency; not autonomous.

    "The competitive necessity of economies of action mean that surveillance capitalists must use all means available to supplant autonomous action with heteronomous action."

  2. 2
    Differing in development or in specialization.
  3. 3
    Being a dialect of an autonomous language.

Synonyms

All synonyms
absolutearistocraticauthoritarianautocraticautonomousbureaucratic

Example

More examples

"The competitive necessity of economies of action mean that surveillance capitalists must use all means available to supplant autonomous action with heteronomous action."

Etymology

From heteronomy + -ous.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.