self-regulatory

adjective

That regulates without external control or monitoring.

OriginEnglish regulatory ← Middle English self- ← Old English self- →
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Meanings

adjectiveself-regulatory (not comparable)
  1. not comparableThat regulates without external control or monitoring.

    One of the primary ways autistic people use stimming is as a self-regulatory mechanism and adaptive response to inaccessible sensory landscapes.

    2021, Erin Felepchuk, “Stimming, Improvisation, and COVID-19: (Re)negotiating Autistic Sensory Regulation During a Pandemic”, in Disability Studies Quarterly, volume 41, number 3, archived from the original on 22 Jan 2022

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*swé?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*selbʰ-
  3. Proto-Germanic*selbaz
  4. Old Englishself
  5. Old Englishself-
  6. Middle Englishself-
  7. Englishself-
  8. Englishregulatory
  9. Englishself-regulatory

From self- + regulatory.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

self-regulatory. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-regulatory

MLA

“self-regulatory.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-regulatory. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “self-regulatory,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/self-regulatory.

Source: self-regulatory on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.