spontaneous

Language: en

🇬🇧 /spɒˈnteɪnɪəs/ 🇺🇸 /spɑˈnteɪniːəs/

📖 Definitions

  1. adjective
    Performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.; Arising from a natural feeling or native tendency without external constraint; natural and unconstrained.; Produced by natural processes without deliberate human intervention or external cause.; In biology, occurring without apparent external cause or stimulus, as in spontaneous generation or spontaneous mutation.; In medicine, occurring without known external cause or without treatment, as in spontaneous remission or spontaneous abortion.; In physics and chemistry, occurring without the input of external energy; proceeding in a given direction without outside influence, as in a spontaneous process or spontaneous emission.; Growing or produced without cultivation or human effort; wild.; Of a person, acting on impulse; not planned or rehearsed in behavior or expression.

🔗 Details

Word forms

Comparative: more spontaneous Superlative: most spontaneous

Collocations

spontaneous combustionspontaneous generationspontaneous recoveryspontaneous reactionspontaneous decisionspontaneous applause

Derivatives

spontaneouslyspontaneityspontaneousness

Synonyms

impulsiveunplannedunrehearsedinstinctiveunpromptednatural

Antonyms

planneddeliberatepremeditatedcalculated

Commonly confused

impulsive
EN: 'Spontaneous' suggests natural, unplanned action (often positive); 'impulsive' implies acting without thought, often with negative consequences.
instinctive
EN: 'Instinctive' refers to innate, biological responses; 'spontaneous' refers to actions arising freely without external prompting.

Spelling tips

EN: Remember the '-eous' ending: 'spontaneous', not 'spontanous' or 'spontanious'. The root is from Latin 'sponte' (of one's own accord).

💬 Examples

  1. The crowd broke into spontaneous applause when the singer finished the song.

  2. Her spontaneous laughter made everyone around her feel at ease.

  3. Spontaneous combustion can occur in piles of oily rags left in enclosed spaces.

  4. The theory of spontaneous generation was disproved by Louis Pasteur's experiments.

  5. The patient experienced spontaneous remission of the tumor without any chemotherapy.

  6. Spontaneous emission of photons occurs when an excited atom returns to a lower energy state.

  7. The hillside was covered with spontaneous vegetation that had never been planted.

  8. She is a very spontaneous person who often decides to travel at the last minute.