Self-government

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The governance of a region by its own populace; autonomy. uncountable

    "The radical party agitated for the region to secede from the confederation and establish self-government."

  2. 2
    government of a political unit by its own people wordnet
  3. 3
    Personal self-control. dated, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
self-ruleabsolute monarchyaplombaristocracyautarchyautarky

Example

More examples

"In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but "from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken…to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth.""

Etymology

From self- + government.

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