as in self-taught
having skills or knowledge acquired through one's own efforts without formal training
an autodidactic painter, John Singleton Copley learned his craft from books purchased from England
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Recent Examples of autodidactic
Over the past decade, she’s cultivated a reputation for a new kind of defiant, autodidactic pop stardom.
—
Holden Seidlitz, New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2025
Holden Seidlitz, New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for autodidactic
Adjective
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David MacMartin, a Westview science teacher who taught her honors and Advanced Placement biology, said most of Fan’s skills with the work were self-taught.—
Jemma Stephenson,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
23 Feb. 2026
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Where Obama is a product of Ivy League schools, Lincoln was largely self-taught.—
Jim Williams,
CBS News,
21 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Ana Dumitrescu stars as a young Romanian woman who moves to France to work for a bourgeois family and joins an amateur theater troupe adapting Mirbeau’s novel for the stage.—
Scott Roxborough,
HollywoodReporter,
18 Mar. 2026
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Tony Vitello knows well enough that two-way players aren’t uncommon in the amateur game.—
Justice delos Santos,
Mercury News,
18 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Autodidactic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/autodidactic. Accessed 19 Mar. 2026.
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