Other forms: automatics
Automatic means it works by itself, with nobody pushing anything. The supermarket doors that slide open as you walk up, the kettle that clicks off when the water boils, the hall light that comes on when you pass it.
Cars come in automatic and manual — an automatic changes gear for you, and people call the car itself an automatic. The word also covers what a body does without deciding: blinking is automatic, so is the flinch when something flies at your face. In contracts and rules it means guaranteed to follow — an automatic pay rise, an automatic ban after three yellow cards. The adverb is automatically. Be careful with people: an automatic reply is one that took no thought, so calling someone's thanks automatic is close to an insult.
1adjectiveautomaticWorking by itself, without a person operating it.
“The gate is automatic, so you drive up and wait for it to open.”
synonyms: automated, self-operating
2adjectiveinstinctiveDone without thinking or deciding; a reflex.
“Her reaction was automatic — she had the child by the arm before she knew it.”
synonyms: instinctive, involuntary
3adjectivecertainCertain to happen as a result of a rule, with nothing more to decide.
“A third offence brings an automatic suspension.”
4nouncarA car whose gears change by themselves; also a gun that reloads itself.
“She hired an automatic rather than learn to work a clutch.”
The Greek αὐτόματος meant self-moving or self-acting, built from αὐτός, 'self', and μέμαα, 'to strive, to yearn' — a thing that moves because it wants to. Greek αὐτόματον became Latin automatum, an automaton, and New Latin made the adjective automaticus from it. Every sliding door still carries that old idea of a machine going of its own will.
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
New Latin
automaticus
English, today
automatic
Built from
Borrowed from New Latin automaticus, from la-cla. New Latin automaticus, from la-cla automatum (“automaton”) + -icus, from Ancient Greek αὐτόματον, neuter of αὐτόματος (“self-moving, moving of oneself, self-acting, spontaneous”), from αὐτός (“self, myself”) + μέμαα (“to wish eagerly, strive, yearn, desire”). The original pronunciation, apparently with stress on the second syllable, was after the ultimate Greek base.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA