themselves
Language: English
Part of speech: pron
Pronunciation: ipa: /ðɛmˈsɛlvz/
ipa: /ðəmˈsɛlvz/
rhymes: -ɛlvz
Forms: form: of they
Etymology: Morphologically them + -selves.
Senses: examples: text: They’ve hurt themselves.
text: They fought among themselves.
text: They are going to try climbing Mount Everest themselves.
text: The preposterous altruism too![…]Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: The real drama came as these two camps fought for undecideds, who literally found themselves in the middle.
ref: 2008 February 17, Jennifer Finney Boylan, “At the Maine Caucuses, a Tough Nut to Crack”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022:
glosses: The reflexive case of they, the third-person plural personal pronoun. The group of people, animals, or objects previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis).
examples: text: Would whoever stole my phone please make themselves known.
text: I don't want anyone to fight among themselves.
text: Everyone must do it themselves.
text: Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Philippians 2:3:
text: In fact she was so busy doing all the things that anyone might, who finds themselves alone in an empty house, that she did not notice at first when it began to turn dusk and the rooms to grow dim.
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 18:
text: “Anyone who has experienced or witnessed an anaphylaxis reaction knows it can be very stressful deciding when to inject epinephrine to themselves or a child and often delay,” Dr. Jonathan Spergel, chief of the allergy program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a news release from ARS Pharmaceuticals.
ref: 2024 August 9, Meg Tirrell, “First nasal spray epinephrine drug for emergency allergic reactions gets FDA approval”, in CNN:
glosses: The reflexive case of they, the third-person singular personal pronoun. The single person previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis).
Synonyms: word: 'emselves
word: theirselves
english: non-gender-specific
translation: non-gender-specific
word: themself
english: non-gender-specific, but nonstandard
translation: non-gender-specific, but nonstandard
word: theirself
word: himself
english: gender-specific
translation: gender-specific
word: herself
Related terms: 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: 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.