automatist
|au-to-mat-ist|
🇺🇸
/ˌɑːtəˈmætɪst/
🇬🇧
/ˌɔːtəˈmætɪst/
a person who acts automatically / practitioner of automatism
Etymology
'automatist' originates from Greek and New Latin roots, specifically from Greek 'automatos' and the noun 'automaton', where 'auto-' meant 'self' and 'matos' meant 'moving'.
'automatos' (Greek) gave rise to Latin/Medieval forms and the Late 19th-century French/English term 'automatism'; the English noun 'automatism' then formed 'automatist' by adding the agent suffix '-ist'.
Initially the root meant 'self-moving' (i.e., moving by itself); over time it evolved into terms for automatic action and then into 'automatist' meaning 'a person who acts automatically' or 'a practitioner of automatism' in art/psychology.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a person who acts automatically or without conscious thought; someone whose actions are habitual or reflexive.
Under stress he became an automatist, performing routine tasks without thinking.
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Noun 2
a practitioner of automatism — e.g., an artist or writer who uses spontaneous, unconscious techniques (as in Surrealism) to produce work.
She is an automatist who creates drawings through spontaneous, unconscious gestures.
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Last updated: 2025/11/26 22:30