'autognosis' originates from Greek, specifically the words 'autos' and 'gnosis', where 'autos' meant 'self' and 'gnosis' meant 'knowledge'.

'autognosis' was coined in modern scholarly/technical usage (via New Latin or direct scholarly formation) from the Greek elements 'autos' + 'gnosis' and was adopted into English as the loaned/coined term 'autognosis'.

Initially, it meant 'knowledge of the self' in the literal Greek sense, and over time it has retained that core sense while being used more specifically in philosophy and psychology to denote introspective self-knowledge.