spontaneous
adjective
Simple meaning
Self-generated; happening without any apparent external cause.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
spahntayneeuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
spɑnˈteɪniəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Self-generated; happening without any apparent external cause.
Done by one's own free choice, or without planning.
Proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external or conscious constraint.
Said or done without prior planning or prior writing.
Arising from a momentary impulse.
Controlled and directed internally; self-active; spontaneous movement characteristic of living things.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Self-generated; happening without any apparent external cause.
Used this way, spontaneous is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use spontaneous
- “Spontaneous laughter.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Controlled
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The quality of being spontaneous and coming from natural feelings without constraint.
In a spontaneous manner.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Ignition of a substance (as oily rags) resulting from an internal oxidation process.
A natural loss of the products of conception.
A hypothetical organic phenomenon by which living organisms are created from nonliving matter.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.