What do you call a word that is an example of itself?



For example, "word" is a word, "adjectival" is adjectival, etc. Is there a term for this? Something like a set that includes itself, but not quite. I want to call it "autoinclusive"; would that work linguistically?



Answer



Perhaps the word you're looking for is autological (or homological).



An autological word (also called homological word) is a word expressing a property which it also possesses itself. Source



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