'autocatalysis' originates from Greek, specifically the elements 'auto-' and 'katalysis', where 'auto-' meant 'self' and 'katalysis' meant 'loosening' or 'dissolution' (from the verb 'katalyein' meaning 'to loosen').

'autocatalysis' was formed in modern scientific English by combining the Greek prefix 'auto-' with the existing term 'catalysis' (which entered English via Neo-Latin/late Greek and 19th-century chemical literature). The compound term appeared in scientific usage in the late 19th to early 20th century to describe reactions whose products act as catalysts.

Initially, the root 'katalysis' meant 'loosening' or 'dissolution'; by the 19th century 'catalysis' had come to mean the acceleration of a chemical reaction by a catalyst, and 'autocatalysis' later narrowed to denote reactions accelerated by their own products—later still the sense broadened to cover self-amplifying processes in other fields.