self-taughtadj.

1586 W. Warner Albions Eng. iv. xxi. 93 Perillus was by Phalaris adiudg'd to selfe-taught payne.

1608 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) ii. iii. 519 To self taught torture he himself is put.

1655 F. Teate Scripture-map Wildernesse of Sin xxi. 412 Nothing was found a more very Enemy to primitive Christianity, than that self-taught Reason, and Heathenish Philosophy.

1728 D. Mallet Excursion i. 26 A noble Grace, Self-taught, beyond the Reach of mimic Art.

1774 O. Goldsmith Hist. Earth VI. 127 All the arts of inferior animals are self-taught, and scarce one acquired by imitation.

1828 M. R. Mitford Our Village III. 123 She had much of the self-taught knowledge, which is, of all knowledge, the surest and the best.

1903 Nineteenth Cent. Apr. 651 His scholarship was self-taught.

2016 Journal (Newcastle) (Nexis) 30 Sept. (News section) 8 Armed with her self-taught digital skills, she was all set to launch her own business.

1587 J. Frewen Certaine Fruitfull Instr. 312 Men cannot haue repentance of their own motion, and as they are selfe taught, but it is God that giueth it.

1653 J. Gauden Hieraspistes 113 These men were self-taught and converted.

1699 W. P. tr. J. Le Clerc Suppl. Dr. Hammond's Paraphr. & Annot. New Test. xx. 70 Imagin Christ, just like a Rabbi, repeating what he had learned from his Masters, as if he had not been self taught.

1726 A. Pope tr. Homer Odyssey V. xxii. 383 Self-taught [Gk. αὐτοδίδακτος] I sing.

1791 J. Boswell Life Johnson anno 1769 I. 324 Mr. Fergusson, the self-taught philosopher.

1840 R. H. Dana Two Years before Mast xxiii. 244 Like most self-taught men he over-estimated the value of an education.

1847 H. Miller First Impressions Eng. xix. 376 The history of one of the self-taught geniuses of England.

1901 W. B. Yeats Let. 23 Jan. (1994) III. 19 When the self taught man adds to this inevitable instinct a special doctrine of his own.., he grows as lively as a Dancing Dervish.

1957 P. Selz Germ. Expressionist Painting vii. 74 They were self-taught—a fact of which they were emphatically proud.

2010 S.–T. Yan & S. Nadis Shape Inner Space xiii. 300 The Indian mathematician and self-taught genius Srinivasa Ramanujan.