Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An automobile.
  • intransitive verb To go by or ride in an automobile.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An element in compound words of Greek origin, meaning self, of itself (natural), of one's self (independently), of nothing but …, etc.: very common in English and other modern languages, especially in scientific terms.
  • noun In Spanish literature, a play.
  • noun In Spanish law:
  • noun An order; a decree; a sentence; a decision.
  • noun plural The pleadings and proceedings in a lawsuit.
  • noun An auto de fe.
  • noun A real existence; what actually exists, in contradistinction to what only apparently exists.
  • noun A colloquial abbreviation of automobile: a motor-car.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective of or pertaining to an automobile.
  • noun An abbreviation of automobile.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An automobile.
  • noun A setting for automatic operation.
  • noun A writ

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a motor vehicle with four wheels; usually propelled by an internal combustion engine

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for automobile.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek αὐτός (autos, "self"), metanalyzed from auto- in words such as automatic, autopilot, and automobile.

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Examples

  • I didn't know about the synonym search (e.g. "~auto loan" will allow auto to match car, truck, etc.) and the wildcards (e.g. "red * blue" will match occurrences of red and blue with one word in between).

    Archive 2004-10-01 Greg Linden 2004

  • I didn't know about the synonym search (e.g. "~auto loan" will allow auto to match car, truck, etc.) and the wildcards (e.g. "red * blue" will match occurrences of red and blue with one word in between).

    Google cheat sheet Greg Linden 2004

  • The term auto bias normally describes a circuit in which the signal grid of a power tube is referenced to ground, and the potential of the cathode is raised above ground through a cathode resistor (footnote 1), thus prompting the tube to adjust itself under operating conditions.

    Stereophile RSS Feed 2009

  • Once you plug in the Wii MotionPlus dongle, the title auto-recognizes it and takes advantage of its added precision.

    IGN Complete 2009

  • You've also got all these auto - what I call auto-performers, who are performing themselves, people like Divine and Mary Vivian Pierce, I mean, people who are really performing heightened versions of themselves.

    Antony Hegarty's Otherworldly Sound 2009

  • Algore your guru of climate change said the auto is the greatest threat to humanity why are you still driving?

    Think Progress » The four stages of global warming denial 2006

  • Algore your guru of climate change said the auto is the greatest threat to humanity why are you still driving?

    Think Progress » The four stages of global warming denial 2006

  • Here -- and more especially in the study of those spontaneous solitary manifestations which I call auto-erotic -- I have attempted to clear the ground, and to indicate the main lines along which the progress of our knowledge in these fields may best be attained.

    Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism Havelock Ellis 1899

  • Now onwards, Google said there would be no auto-following, but Google will merely suggest people you could follow, what it calls auto-suggest.

    The Economic Times 2010

  • Google said there would be no auto-following, but Google will merely suggest people you could follow, what it calls auto-suggest.

    The Times of India 2010

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