Definition of "autoerotism" [autoerotism]

• Self-satisfaction of sexual desire, as by masturbation. (noun)
• The arousal of sexual feeling without an external stimulus. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Female child, entirely made character of in autoerotism and masturbation, 79"
• "[11] Ellis spoils, however, the sense of his invented term by comprising under the phenomena of autoerotism the whole of hysteria and masturbation in its full extent."
• "My attention has also been directed to a deficiency in the above-cited statement which for the sake of clearness described any conceivable separation between the two phases of autoerotism and object love as a temporal separation."