myself
Language: English
Part of speech: pron
Pronunciation: note: weak form
ipa: /məˈsɛlf/
note: strong form
ipa: /maɪˈsɛlf/
rhymes: -ɛlf
Forms: form: case of I
form: meself
form: myselfe
Etymology: From Middle English myself, meself, from Old English mē selfum and similar phrases, equivalent to me + self, later partly reinterpreted as my + self / -self. Cognate with Scots mysel, mysell (“myself”), West Frisian mysels (“myself”), Dutch mijzelf (“myself”), German mich selbst, mir selbst (“myself”), Norwegian Bokmål meg selv (“myself”).
Senses: examples: text: I taught myself.
text: (I) don’t think much of your new car, myself.
text: Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: “If you were a little bit kinder to yourself today, or if you gained insight, if you had an ‘Aha’ like, ‘Oh, man, I really do talk to myself the way my mom talked to me,’ or you identify a childhood wound … all of that is a form of reparenting,” she said.
ref: 2025 April 28, Madeline Holcombe, “It might be time to ‘reparent’ yourself. Here’s how to get started”, in CNN:
glosses: Me, as direct or indirect object the speaker as the object of a verb or preposition, when the speaker is also the subject.
examples: text: I myself have witnessed the event.
glosses: Personally, for my part; used in apposition to I, sometimes for simple emphasis and sometimes with implicit exclusion of any others performing the activity described.
examples: text: I feel like myself.
glosses: In my normal state of body or mind.
examples: text: Give the ball to John or myself.
glosses: Me, as the object of a verb or preposition without a reflexive trigger. Sometimes used for intensifying the pronoun of oneself.
examples: text: My wife and myself want to go on vacation.
text: And my selfe have knowen a Gentleman, a chiefe officer of our crowne, that by right and hope of succession (had he lived unto it) was to inherit above fifty thousand crownes a yeere good land[…].
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: Myself am confident that an ointment of it is one of the best remedies for a scabby head that is.
ref: 1653, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged:
glosses: I (as the subject of a verb).
examples: text: Myself John.
glosses: my name is...
Synonyms: word: me
Related terms: word: myselves
word: I'll see myself out
word: Ime
word: me
word: myselfmemysen
word: mine
word: mymineme
word: we
word: us
word: ourselvesourselfoursen
word: oursourn
word: our
word: you
word: yourselfyoursen
word: yoursyourn
word: your
word: thou
word: thee
word: thyselftheeselfthysen
word: thine
word: thythine
word: youye
word: yourselves
word: you ally'all you guys
word: y'allselves
word: all yours y'all's you guys' your guys'
word: all your y'all's your all's you guys' your guys'
word: he
word: him
word: himselfhisselfhissen
word: hishisn
word: his
word: she
word: her
word: herselfhersen
word: hershern
word: ithit
word: itselfhitself
word: itshis
word: itshishits
word: they
word: them
word: themself
word: themselves
word: theirs
word: their
word: one
word: oneself
word: –
word: one's
word: themhem
word: 'em
word: themselvestheirsen
word: theirstheirn
word: The following table shows a list of English personal pronoun
word: including archaic and dialectal forms. Dialectal and obsolete
word: archaic forms are in italics. 1 See Appendix:English third-person singular pronouns for attested neopronoun.