When English philosopher Thomas Hobbes penned his 1656 The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance he included the following: "all voluntary actions … are called also spontaneous, and said to be done by man's own accord." Hobbes was writing in English, but he knew Latin perfectly well too, including the source of spontaneous; the word comes, via Late Latin spontaneus, from the Latin sponte, meaning "of one's free will, voluntarily." In modern use, the word spontaneous is frequently heard in more mundane settings, where it often describes what is done or said without a lot of thought or planning.
spontaneous implies lack of prompting and connotes naturalness.
a spontaneous burst of applause
impulsive implies acting under stress of emotion or spirit of the moment.
impulsive acts of violence
instinctive stresses action involving neither judgment nor will.
blinking is an instinctive reaction
automatic implies action engaging neither the mind nor the emotions and connotes a predictable response.
his denial was automatic
mechanical stresses the lifeless, often perfunctory character of the response.
a mechanical teaching method
Example Sentences
Shane has a lovely habit of paying us spontaneous visits: one time she brought over a jar of a pickle she'd recently put up; another time just a good story or two. James Oseland, Saveur, December 2006Cold viruses can damage the olfactory system directly. This loss of smell may last even after the cold is over. Sometimes the sense comes back as suddenly as it disappeared, perhaps because even as adults we generate new olfactory neurons. Spontaneous improvement might be a person's best hope, because there are no real proven treatments for reversing olfactory nerve damage.Harvard Health Letter, September 2001Peter Jakobsen of the European Space Agency, which built the Faint Object Camera, drew spontaneous applause at the January meeting when he showed an image of supernova SN1987A from the instrument. Kristin Leutwyler, Scientific American, March 1994 The comment was completely spontaneous. He's a guy who's spontaneous and fun.
Recent Examples on the WebFrom the 1960s onward, photos emerged that appear more spontaneous, showing her laughing or interacting with her dogs. Kelly Crow, WSJ, 11 Sep. 2022 Despite claims that Trump's call for rally-goers to march to the Capitol was spontaneous, the committee laid out evidence suggesting that may not have been the case. Alexandra Hutzler, ABC News, 23 July 2022 The source added that Lopez and Affleck's Las Vegas wedding wasn't actually spontaneous. Alyssa Bailey, ELLE, 21 July 2022 How much planning went into the video, and how much of it was spontaneous? Liam Hess, Vogue, 15 July 2022 While her speech appeared spontaneous and impassioned, her decision to go blonde may have been a bit more premeditated. Sam Reed, Glamour, 27 June 2022 Your decision to grab that gum may have been spontaneous, but the plan to entice you in the checkout lane was carefully crafted. Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN, 21 May 2022 They are designed to choke any possibility for the kind of spontaneous, ad hoc commercial and community happenings that are the lifeblood of urban existence.Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2022 Much of what is on view in the Cooper Hewitt exhibition is about resistance, sometimes spontaneous and often collective, to these dehumanizing forces.Washington Post, 16 Dec. 2021 See More
Word History
Etymology
Late Latin spontaneus, from Latin sponte of one's free will, voluntarily