under one's own steam

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under one's own steam

1. (of a ship or other watercraft) By means of the power of its own engines.
   • 1915, Victor Appleton, The Moving Picture Boys at Panama, ch. 12:

     Now the tug no longer moved under her own steam, nor had it been since coming alongside the wall of the central pier.

2. (idiomatic) Using one's own resources; unaided; at one's own initiative.
   • 1980, Charlotte Vale Allen, Promises, →ISBN, p. 265:

     I'd been wanting her to go for a long, long time, hoping she'd get up the gumption to do it under her own steam so I wouldn't have to make a scene about it.

   • 1987 Aug. 18, "At the Fringe in Edinburgh, Theater in Crypt and Streets," New York Times (retrieved 27 July 2011):

     "People come at their own risk, at their own expense, under their own steam," said Mhairi McKenzie-Robinson, chief administrator of the Fringe.

   • 2008 Sep. 9, Josh Quittner, "Steve Jobs: Not Dead Yet," Time:

     Jobs even briefly joined the media. . . . He walked under his own steam, of course, easily and without any apparent discomfort.

• of one's own accord