itself
Language: English
Part of speech: pron
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪtˈsɛlf/
ipa: /ɪtˈself/
ipa: /ɪtˈsɛl/
rhymes: -ɛlf
Forms: form: it
form: himself
form: herself
form: themself
form: themselves
form: it self
form: it selfe
Etymology: From Middle English hit-self, equivalent to it + -self.
Senses: examples: text: When the opportunity presented itself, no feasible course of action suggested itself (to us).
text: The researchers posit that something they call the “hipster effect” asserts itself in human populations no matter how individualistic we imagine ourselves to be, because it’s individuality itself that sparks conformity.
ref: 2014 December 2, David DiSalvo, “Are You Vulnerable to the Hipster Effect?”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2025:
glosses: it; A thing as the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject
examples: text: The door itself is quite heavy.
text: Beautie alone is a ſoveraigne remedy againſt feare,griefe,and all melancholy fits; a charm,as Peter de la Seine and many other writers affirme,a banquet it ſelfe;he gives inſtance in diſcontented Menelaus that was ſo often freed by Helenas faire face: and ʰTully, 3 Tusc. cites Epicurus as a chiefe patron of this Tenent.
ref: 1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection iv, page 298:
text: The researchers posit that something they call the “hipster effect” asserts itself in human populations no matter how individualistic we imagine ourselves to be, because it’s individuality itself that sparks conformity.
ref: 2014 December 2, David DiSalvo, “Are You Vulnerable to the Hipster Effect?”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2025:
glosses: it; used to intensify the subject, especially to emphasize that it is the only participant in the predicate
examples: text: The oil by degrees gets covered with a curdy mass, which after some time settles to the bottom, while itself becomes limpid and colorless.
ref: 1842, Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines:
glosses: it; used to refer back to an earlier subject
Synonyms: word: itsself
Derived terms: a house divided against itself cannot stand
being-for-itself
being-in-itself
dense-in-itself
end in itself
history repeats itself
in and of itself
in itself
in-itselfness
lend itself to
of itself
pay for itself
repeat itself
simplicity itself
suggest itself
the trash takes itself out
thing-in-itself
thing in itself
unto itself
write itself
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: 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.