adjective

• 1Exercising control over one's own affairs.

  ‘The AAUP has consistently held that academic freedom can be maintained only so long as faculty remain autonomous and self-governing.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The Athenians were free men because they were collectively self-governing, although they lacked personal independence and civil liberties, and were expected to sacrifice their pleasures for the sake of the polis.’
  • ‘Political thinkers imagined the American family as a factory specifically designed to turn out self-governing citizens - something quite different from what other kinds of families did.’
  • ‘As these atrocities were happening, the self-governing body within the ghetto collected and analysed the information and began preparing for resistance.’
  • ‘For the promise of ‘the end of history’ to come true, competent self-governing institutions have to come into being.’
  • ‘He wanted to have a community that was as self-governing as possible.’

  Synonyms

  independent, sovereign, autonomous, non-aligned, free

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1(of a British hospital or school) having opted out of local authority control.
     ‘Direct-grant schools were entirely self-governing and independent, but took pupils funded by the state.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Schools are now self-governing and what little is left to strategic planning is being hived off to Education Action Zones.’
     • ‘Staff at Princess Margaret Hospital have been rehearsing and refining their major incident plan since 1993, when the hospital became a self-governing trust.’
     • ‘The Prime Minister's idea was to have a cadre of entrepreneurial, self-governing, independent hospitals operating freely within the NHS.’
     • ‘Local authorities will play an even bigger role in the admission policies of the new self-governing state schools, it emerged yesterday.’
     • ‘As a group of self-governing, state-funded schools, that took bright pupils from state primary schools, they were once a beacon of excellence.’
  2. 1.2(of a former colony or dependency) administering its own affairs.
     ‘Rapid economic development followed, the country becoming the crown colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1911 and a self-governing colony in 1923.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Greenland is classified as a self-governing dependency and has been ruled by Denmark since 1721.’
     • ‘How could a colony be self-governing and still part of the empire?’
     • ‘He also dealt with Southern Rhodesia, though it was still officially a self-governing colony.’
     • ‘Until 1980, Rhodesia was an internally self-governing colony with its own legislature, civil service, armed forces, and police.’
     • ‘New Zealand became a self-governing colony of Britain in 1852, and was granted dominion status within the empire in 1907.’
     • ‘When representative government was introduced to Bermuda in 1620, it became a self-governing colony.’
     • ‘When the federation was terminated, Barbados reverted to its former status as a self-governing colony.’
     • ‘It was seen as an historical occasion, marking the first time that soldiers of a self-governing Australian colony were to fight in an imperial war.’
     • ‘The Faroe Islands are a self-governing region of the Kingdom of Denmark.’
     • ‘As a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire, New Zealand was not technically a sovereign state in 1939.’
     • ‘In 1910 the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, was created.’
     • ‘Canada, for instance, was for a hundred years a self-governing dominion within the British Empire.’
     • ‘The self-governing British colony may legalize casinos, although there is opposition to it.’