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 [ edit ]

abstruse

adjectival

archaïc

articulated

assimilative (contains historical 'ad-' -> 'as-' assimilation to 'simulare')

awkward

back-formed

brief

clear

common

complete

consonant-initial

defined

descriptive

dismoded

double-barrelled

eloquent

English

esoteric

existing

fifteen-lettered

finite

fourteen-letter

fricative-initial

grandiloquent

hyphen-using

inanimate

interesting (the second, verbal morpheme in it comes from Latin esse "to be", an auxiliary, non-lexical verb)

"to be", an auxiliary, non-lexical verb) lateral-final

l33t

Latinate

lexiphanic

liquid-final

longer

lush

magniloquent

meaningful

mellifluous

multisyllabic

nasal-initial

old

pentasyllabic

plosive-initial

polysyllabic

prefixed

readable

repetitive (contains a repetitive pattern of letters CV 1 CV 1 CV 2 CV 2 )

CV CV CV ) sesquipedalian

seventeen-lettered

sibilant-initial

significant

simple

snappy

subtle (the b)

suffixed

terse

tight

tinny

twelve-letter

unambivalent

ungradable

unhyphenated

used

visible

vowelled

wee

woody

writeable

written

Depending on context [ edit ]

Depending on inclusion or frequency [ edit ]

Depending on order or position [ edit ]

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

noted

antepenultimate (In the present context)

penultimate (In the present context)

final (In the present context)

Depending on format or delivery [ edit ]

Computer programming and websites [ edit ]

editable

linking

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 [ edit ]

mispellings of "mispelt" etc

mispronunciations of "mispronunciation"

keying errors when writing "typo" or "typos"

Previously autological [ edit ]

neologism used to be autological, but no longer is

new

Nouns [ edit ]

Depending on context [ edit ]

antonym (when discussing the word synonym)

example (in present context)

Film (actually not autological as a word, but it is as a name)

(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

neologism (originally)

protologism

spelling

symbol (when used in the Peircian sense)

synonym (or: poecilonym)

utterance (when spoken)

Computer programming and websites [ edit ]

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)



Verbs [ edit ]

Other parts of speech [ edit ]

adverbially

epexegetically (especially in this context)

four

horizontally

See also [ edit ]