Dictionary

self-sustaining en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *swé? Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *selbaz Old English self Old English self- Middle English self- English self- English sustaining English self-sustaining From self- + sustaining.

Meanings

1. Able to provide for one's own needs without help from others; self-sufficient.
   • There was nothing odd, or futuristic, or exotically “eco” about the house — no solar panels to be seen, no giant arrays of thermopane windows passively drinking up light and heat; yet here, I’d been told, in the Sourland Mountains in New Jersey, an hour from Manhattan, was a house that had the potential — not long from now, not 20 years from now, but maybe within 5 to 10 years — to help turn millions of American homes into fully self-sustaining power plants, each one capable of producing hydrogen to fuel cars as well. 2007 May 20, Mark Svenvold, “The Zero-Energy Solution”, in The New York Times:
2. (of a nuclear chain reaction) Able to provide for one's own needs without help from others; self-sufficient. ▸ Able to sustain itself without the need for additional fuel.
3. Opposing or rejecting exterior influence; independent.

Forms

Relateds

self-sufficient

Translations (5)

pl niezależny (able to provide for one's own needs) · pl samodzielny (able to provide for one's own needs) · de selbstständig (able to provide for one's own needs) · de unabhängig (able to provide for one's own needs) · de autark (able to provide for one's own needs)