selfsame
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsɛlfseɪm/
ipa: /ˌsɛlfˈseɪm/
ipa: /ˈsɛlfˌseɪm/
rhymes: (one RP pronunciation) -eɪm
Forms: form: self same
form: self-same
Etymology: PIE word
 *swé
From Middle English self sam, self same, selve same (“the very same, selfsame”) [and other forms], from self (“that specific (person mentioned), herself, himself, itself, themselves”, pronoun) (from Old English self, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swé (“self”)) + sam, same (“(adjective) equal, identical; unchanging; referred to earlier, abovenamed, aforementioned; (adverb) again, repeatedly”) (from Old Norse samr (“same; agreeing, of one mind”), ultimately probably from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one, together”)). The English word is analysable as self + same.
Cognates
* Danish selvsamme (“identical, selfsame”)
* Old High German selbsama (“identical, selfsame”)
Senses: examples: text: For both of you are Birds of ſelfe-ſame Feather.
ref: c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 162, column 1:
text: In my ſchoole dayes, vvhen I had loſt one ſhaft [i.e., arrow], / I ſhot his fellovv of the ſelfe-ſame flight / The ſelfe-ſame vvay, vvith more aduiſed vvatch / To finde the other foorth, and by aduentring both, / I oft found both. I vrge this child-hoode proofe, / Becauſe vvhat follovves, is pure innocence.
ref: c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
text: He and his Horse, were of a piece. / One Spirit did inform them both, / The self-same Vigor, Fury, Wroth: […]
ref: 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 40:
text: He trod the very ſelf-ſame ground you tread, / And victory refuted all he ſaid.
ref: 1781 (date written), William Cowper, “Table Talk”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1782, →OCLC, page 21:
text: Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free, / Like some broad river rushing down alone, / With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown / From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:— […]
ref: 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “Sonnet”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 1:
text: And Quack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side and under of the self-same substance; convertible personages: turn up your dupe into the proper fostering element, and he himself can become a quack; […]
ref: 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Morrison’s Pill”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book I (Proem), page 26:
text: But in [Isaac] Newton, science was as easy as breathing; he used the same wit to weigh the moon that he used to buckle his shoes; and all his life was simple, wise, and majestic. So it was in Archimedes,—always self-same, like the sky.
ref: 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Works and Days”, in Society and Solitude. Twelve Chapters, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 164:
text: [T]hrough my police issue 200 × 6000 macroscopic laser-prism binoculars I could see he was the same guy who had just bopped the doorman in the head. […] But you can imagine my surprise when I angled said state-of-the-art bins to the street, watched the long black car as it rolled up and saw the self-same guy step out of it.
ref: 1992, Robert Rankin, chapter 12, in The Suburban Book of the Dead: Armageddon III: The Remake, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 131:
synonyms: word: identical
word: indifferent
word: nondifferent
word: one and the same
word: self
word: selfsame
word: undifferent
word: undifferentiated
antonyms: word: other
word: identical
word: similar
glosses: Chiefly preceded by the: precisely the same; the very same; the same not only in being similar but in being identical.
Derived terms: selfsameness