Meanings
- USuncountableAn enthusiasm for motor vehicles and motoring.
The fact is, some of these people are seized with automania, and if they could not go fast, they would not care to go at all. Automania is the feverish desire to move at the greatest rate of speed of which the motor is capable, with no regard for the life of bipeds or quadrupeds.
1906 May, “Farmers’ problems”, in Farm Journal, page 1781 more example
There seems to be need of a term to designate these new terrors of our streets, those speed crazed paranoiacs who are now doing so much to bring the automobile into disrepute.[…] Why not adopt the name “automania” for the disease and the automaniac to designate the person afflicted by it?
1902, “The Automaniac”, in Massachusetts Medical Journal, page 551Synonyms: motormania
Synonyms & antonyms
nounAn enthusiasm for motor vehicles and motoring.
Origin
From auto + -mania. Attested from the 20th century. Compare slightly earlier automaniac.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Polish automania
- automaniaTranslations
Cite this entry
automania. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/automania
“automania.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/automania. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “automania,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/automania.
Source: automania on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.