From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishautonomousau‧ton‧o‧mous /ɔːˈtɒnəməs $ ɒːˈtɑː-/ ●○○ adjective 1 PGINDEPENDENT COUNTRY OR ORGANIZATIONan autonomous place or organization is free to govern or control itself SYN independentan autonomous region/state/republic etc Galicia is an autonomous region of Spain.2 INDEPENDENT PERSON formal having the ability to work and make decisions by yourself without any help from anyone else SYN independent —autonomously adverb
Examples from the Corpus
autonomous• The councils, which are locally autonomous, act as courts for the whole area.• These powers will limit the extent to which men and women can be autonomous and equal in love-making.• The love between man and wife, therefore, apparently presupposes man and wife treating one another as equal, autonomous beings.• an autonomous region• An autonomous system would need to be able to respond rapidly.• Because churches are autonomous, the denomination has no authority to limit the pulpit or deacon boards to men, he said.• Andorra is autonomous, with its external affairs managed by both France and Spain.an autonomous region/state/republic etc• Tuva, under the Soviet system, was always an autonomous republic.• The Crimea had been an autonomous republic from 1921 to 1945.Origin autonomous (1800-1900) Greek autonomos “independent”, from auto- ( → AUTO-) + nomos “law” 