self-propagatingadj.

1676 B. Stonham Saul & David compared Together 253 Grace is self-propagating as well as Sin.

1748 S. Richardson Clarissa VI. xxxiii. 119 Love (like some self-propagating plants or roots, which have taken strong hold in the earth), when once got deep into the heart, is hardly ever totally extirpated.

1790 Lett. & Papers Agric. (Bath & West of Eng. Soc.) V. 263 Ground..may, by a judicious planting of these trees, be covered in a few years with a self-propagating wood.

1869 Ann. Rep. Commissioner Agric. 1868 265 in U.S. Congress. Serial Set (40th Congr., 3rd Sess.: House of Representatives Executive Doc.) XV In any soil congenial to its growth, the atocha is self-propagating.

1890 Amer. Naturalist 24 389 A falsehood is proliferous and self-propagating.

1953 World Today Aug. 350 If the fall in commodity prices were a self-propagating movement,..it might readily bring in its train..widespread economic recession.

2000 Times 2 Feb. 27/4 The worm..[is] a particularly malicious self-propagating type of virus which..can execute as soon as an e-mail is opened.

2011 S. Akeroyd et al. Compl. Gardener's Man. 333/2 Although you have to actively propagate some plants, many are self-propagating.