Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To cause to undergo autolysis.
  • intransitive verb To undergo autolysis.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To undergo or cause to undergo autolytic digestion.

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

  • verb biology To destroy itself: to be destroyed by its own enzymes.

Etymologies

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

[Probably back-formation from autolysis.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From auto- +‎ lyze.

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Examples

  • Having the dough autolyze is kind of annoying when there's a preferment and you're trying a bread recipe for the first time, however, because you don't know exactly how much liquid you're going to be adding.)

    Archive 2005-01-01 2005

  • It will live on its own stored substance, autolyze.

    Fasting to a Comfortable Death 2009

  • Leader directs you to mix up the final dough, sans salt and levain, let it autolyze for 20 minutes, then mix in the salt, followed by the liquid levain.

    The Fresh Loaf 2010

  • Leader directs you to mix up the final dough, sans salt and levain, let it autolyze for 20 minutes, then mix in the salt, followed by the liquid levain.

    The Fresh Loaf 2010

  • The cancer cells were found to autolyze with curcumin present; the study has been published in The British Journal of Cancer.

    foodconsumer.org 2009

  • The dough de facto gets a long autolyze step in the beginning due to the very low concentration of yeast.

    The Fresh Loaf 2008

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