Meaning & use
autographic
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Written in the author's own handwriting, rather than typed, printed or copied by someone else.
Grammar: Comes before the noun it describes: an autographic letter, not a letter that is autographic.
Patterns
- an autographic letter
- an autographic manuscript
The museum owns an autographic letter in which the composer complains about his publisher.
Experts confirmed that the autographic notes in the margins belonged to the poet.
An autographic manuscript is usually worth far more than a printed copy.
adjectivebefore a nountechnical
Describing an instrument that records its own readings automatically, such as a device that draws a continuous line of changes over time.
Grammar: Used before nouns like recorder or instrument: an autographic rain gauge.
Patterns
- an autographic recorder
The weather station relied on an autographic rain gauge that drew a line on a paper chart.
An autographic recorder tracked the river level day and night.
Older autographic instruments have been replaced by digital sensors in most labs.
Common combinations
- autographic letter
- The dealer sold an autographic letter written by a famous explorer.
- autographic manuscript
- The library displays an autographic manuscript of the novel's first chapter.
- autographic note
- She found an autographic note tucked inside the old book.
- autographic recorder
- An autographic recorder logged the temperature every hour.
- autographic copy
- Only one autographic copy of the speech survives.
Synonyms and how they differ
- handwritten
- Handwritten is the ordinary word for anything written by hand, while autographic stresses that it is in the author's own hand.
- holograph
- Holograph, used as an adjective or noun, is a very specialist term for a document wholly in its author's handwriting and is rarer than autographic.
- self-recording
- Self-recording fits instruments that log their own data, and it is plainer language than autographic.
Opposites
Word family
- autograph noun
- a person's signature, especially a famous one
- autograph verb
- to sign something with your own name
- autographed adjective
- signed by its owner or a famous person
- autography noun
- one's own handwriting or the practice of writing in it
Commonly confused: autographic or autobiographic? autographic or autographed?
autographic vs autobiographic
Autobiographic means relating to the story of one's own life, not to handwriting or self-recording.
autographic vs autographed
Autographed means signed by someone, whereas autographic means written entirely by hand by the author.
Practice
Which phrase correctly uses autographic in its main sense?
Choose one answer.
An autographic letter is one written in the author's own hand. A photograph that someone signed would be called autographed, not autographic.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “autographic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.