Appendix:English autological terms

See also: Category:English autological terms

A word is autological or homological if it describes itself. Since adjectives are words that are designed to describe things, including words, most autological words are adjectives.

Other parts of speech may be autological: Nouns and verbs can also be self-descriptive, though not in the same way that adjectives are; phrases may be autological, e.g., “three words long” is three words long; likewise acronyms may be, like TLA for "three letter acronym" or RAS syndrome for "redundant acronym syndrome syndrome".

A word which is not autological is heterological, except the word “heterological” itself, which logically cannot be either – see the Grelling–Nelson paradox. The word “autological” itself may be taken, without contradiction, to be either autological or heterological – see Grelling–Nelson paradox#Autological.

The main list of autological words is Category:English autological terms; below find discussions of words that are autological in certain contexts or require explanation.

Adjectives

• abrupt
• absolete
• abstruse
• adjectival
• apostropheless
• archaïc (in this spelling)
• articulated
• assimilative (contains historical 'ad-' -> 'as-' assimilation to 'simulare')
• awkward
• back-formed
• brief
• briticised
• clear
• commaless
• common
• complete
• concave (all of its letters are concave shapes)
• consonant-initial
• defined
• cringe
• decipherable
• descriptive
• diphthong-containing
• dismoded
• double-barrelled
• eloquent
• embiggened
• English
• esoteric
• existing
• fifteen-lettered
• finite
• fourteen-letter
• fricative-initial
• grandiloquent
• hiatus-containing
• hyphen-using
• inanimate
• interesting (the second, verbal morpheme in it comes from Latin esse "to be", an auxiliary, non-lexical verb)
• lateral-final
• l33t
• Latinate
• lexiphanic
• liquid-final
• longer
• lush
• magniloquent
• meaningful
• mellifluous
• monosemous
• multilettered
• multisyllabic
• nasal-initial
• old
• outmoded
• oxymoronic (formed from root words meaning 'sharp' and 'dull')
• pentasyllabic
• plosive-initial
• polysyllabic
• prefixed
• pronounceable
• proparoxytone
• readable
• repetitive (contains a repetitive pattern of letters CV₁CV₁CV₂CV₂)
• sesquipedalian
• seventeen-lettered
• sibilant-initial
• significant
• simple
• snappy
• suffixed
• terse
• twelve-letter
• unambivalent
• uncopyrightable
• understandable
• ungradable
• unhyphenated
• usable
• used
• visible
• vowelled
• wee
• writeable
• written

Depending on context

• autological (can be treated as autological or not, indifferently; see Grelling–Nelson paradox)
• contextual (in this one, at least)
• igpay atinlay
• obscurantist (when used to describe long, intelligent-sounding language; obfuscatory)
• olden (at present)
• pronounceable (for many people)
• redundant, when placed preceding tautologies
• self-referential (when applied to itself)
• stressed syllables
• toxic, when used as an insult

Depending on inclusion or frequency

• included (in a text or a list)
• listed (when it is an item in a list)
• mentioned (in a text or conversation)
• documented
• noted
• recorded
• duplicated (if the term appears more than once)
• duplicated (if the term appears more than once)
• repeated (if the term appears more than once)
• repeated (if the term appears more than once)
• redundant (if the term appears more than once, unnecessarily)
• superfluous (if the term is not necessary)

Depending on order or position

• initial (in the present context; could be replaced by synonyms such as first)
• second (in the present context)
• third (in the present context)
• fourth (in the present context) (etc.)
• middling (in the present context)
• noted
• antepenultimate (in the present context)
• penultimate (in the present context)
• final (in the present context)

Depending on format or delivery

• black and other colours - when the word is printed in those colours: red, green, blue, etc.)
• bold - when written in bold font
• camouflaged - when camouflaged, as in: camouflaged )
  • indented - when spaced thus
• ink - when written in ink
• italic - when written in italic font
• legible - often
• left-justified, flush left - usually
• opaque - when written in such a way as to make it opaque
• orthographic - when written
• phonetic - when spoken
• spoken/written etc. (when spoken/written etc.)
• typed - when typed
• sibilant - when spoken by somebody without a lisp or other sibilant-affecting speech impediment
• underlined - when underlined
• unsung/unwritten etc. - when not sung/written etc.
• the name of any typeface - when written in that typeface

Computer programming and websites

• editable (in a wiki-based online encyclopedia)
• linking (in an online encyclopedia)
• QmFzZTY0 ('Base64' in Base64)
• true when used as a string literal in most programming languages (non-empty strings usually evaluate to true when converted to boolean)
• string

Dependent on an error

• misspellings of "misspelt" etc
• mispronunciations of "mispronounced"
• keying errors when writing "typo" or "typos"

Previously autological

• new

Nouns

• abbr, abbr., abbrv., and abbrev.
• ALL CAPS
• assimilation (from Latin assimulare, from ad- + simulare, i.e. an example of prefix assimilation)
• antonym
• buzzword
• CamelCase
• characters
• dead metaphor
• eggcorn
• frankenword
• haplogy
• isogram
• keming
• kludge
• Latin script
• l33t/1337
• lemma
• letters
• loan translation
• lowerCamelCase
• metaphor
• mondegreen
• morpheme
• nihilartikel
• nominalization (is a nominalization of "to nominalize")
• noun
• noun adjunct
• noun phrase
• plurals
• RAS syndrome
• recondite
• romaji, Pinyin, etc.
• semordnilap
• singular
• small caps
• soraismus
• spondee
• text
• thing
• trochee
• UpperCamelCase
• Wanderwort
• word

Depending on context

• antonym (when discussing the word synonym)
• example (in present context)
• Film (actually not autological as a word, but it is as a name)
• item (in a list)
• keyword (when it is searched)
• lowercase (when not at the beginning of a sentence nor all-caps)
• name
• midpoint (in the context of this list)
• password (when used as one, as it so often is)
• protologism
• spelling
• symbol (when used in the Peircian sense)
• synonym (or: poecilonym)
• utterance (when spoken)
• whisper, shout, song etc. (when whispered, shouted, sung, etc.)

Computer programming and websites

• e-text (when stored in an electronic format)
• hyperlink (when it appears as a hyperlink)
• link (in a webpage)
  • blue link
  • red link (in a wiki which does not have a page for "red link"; in this case, it is heterological)

Dependent on an error

• mispronunciations of "mispronunciation"
• keying errors when writing "typo" or "typos"

Previously autological

• neologism used to be autological, but no longer is

Verbs

• conjugate
• exists
• extend
• inflect
• is
• lengthen
• verb, when used as a verb
• verbify

Other parts of speech

• adverbially
• epexegetically (especially in this context)
• four (spelled with four letters)
• horizontally

See also

• self-reference
• Grelling-Nelson paradox
• concrete poetry
• nominative determinism

Further reading

• List of autological words and discussion