'automaticity' originates from English formed by the adjective 'automatic' plus the suffix '-ity' (from Latin '-itas'), where the Greek root 'autó-' meant 'self' and 'matos' (from 'automatos') meant 'self-acting' or 'moving of itself'.

'automaticity' was formed in English by adding the noun-forming suffix '-ity' to 'automatic' (itself from French 'automatique' and Greek 'automatos'), producing the modern noun 'automaticity' in the 19th–20th centuries to denote the state or quality of being automatic.

Initially tied strictly to the idea of 'self-acting' or 'self-moving', the term broadened, especially in psychology, to mean the state of performing actions without conscious thought ('automatic performance' or 'automatic processing').