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αὐτόματον

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Etymology and origin of the Ancient Greek word αὐτόματον

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
400s BC Herodotus More words from the 5th century BC
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek αὐτο-,-ματος
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Ancient Greek αὐτόματος (autómatos)
Ancient Greek αὐτόματον (autómaton)
Latin automatum
English automaton
From the same root
English automatic ← αὐτόματος

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /au̯.tó.ma.ton/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /aɸˈto.ma.ton/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /afˈto.ma.ton/[1]

Forms

αὐτόμᾰτον (autómaton) n (genitive αὐτομᾰ́του); second declension[1]

Etymology

The neuter of the adjective from Ancient Greek αὐτόματος (autómatos, “acting of one's own accord”), used as a noun.[1][2] The adjective is a compound of αὐτός (autós, “self”) and -ματος (-matos), the zero grade of the root of μέμονα (mémona) and μένος (ménos), from Proto-Indo-European *mn̥tós (“thought”).[3][4] The second part matches Latin commentus and Sanskrit मत (matá-).[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus, in the 5th century BC, has the phrase ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου “of itself, by chance”, of animals that die without a visible cause.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

As a noun τὸ αὐτόματον was chance, the accidental: Lysias speaks of blaming it, and Menander says that it saved a man.[2][4] Aristotle made it a technical term of his physics and metaphysics, the spontaneous, set against art and against purposeful choice.[2][4] Its most frequent use was in set phrases meaning “by chance”: ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου (Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato), ἐκ τοῦ αὐτομάτου (Xenophon, Polybius, Plutarch).[2][5] An inscription from Pergamum personifies it as a deity, and a line of Menander calls it a god.[2][4] The 13th-century lexicon of Zonaras still defines it in Aristotle's terms, as a cause by accident.[6]

The plural τὰ αὐτόματα meant self-moving figures, marionettes in Aristotle and machines in Hero's work on automata.[2][4] Latin borrowed the word as Latin automatum, and English automaton (1610s) comes from Latin.[7][8] Modern Greek αυτόματο (aftómato), “an automaton, a machine”, is a learned borrowing of French automate, not a continuation of the ancient noun for chance.[9]

Timeline

  • 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use apò toû automátou for “by chance”.[2][4]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Lysias uses the noun for chance as something one may blame.[2][4]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for the spontaneous, opposed to art, and the plural for marionettes.[2][4]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Menander speaks of it as saving a man and calls it a god.[2]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses ek toû automátou, “by chance”.[5][10][4]
  • 1610s – English takes automaton, a self-acting machine, from Latin.[8]
  • Modern Greek – αυτόματο (aftómato) is a learned loan from French automate.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Chance, accident.[2] (philosophy) The spontaneous, as opposed to art or purpose.[2][4][11]
  2. In phrases with ἀπό, ἐκ or διά: by chance, of itself.[2][4][5]
  3. (in the plural) Self-moving figures, marionettes; mechanical automata.[2][4]
  4. Chance personified as a deity.[2][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  5. ^ a b c Дворецкий, И. Х. (1958), Древнегреческо-русский словарь, Moscow: ГИС
  6. ^ Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
  7. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  10. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  11. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli
Cite this entry

“Αὐτόματον.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/grc/%CE%B1%E1%BD%90%CF%84%CF%8C%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD. Accessed 8 Nov. 2026.

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