itself

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See also: it self

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English hit-self, equivalent to it +‎ -self.

Pronunciation

Pronoun

itself (the third person singular, neuter, personal pronoun, the reflexive form of it, masculine himself, feminine herself, gender-neutral themself, plural themselves)

  1. (reflexive) it; A thing as the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject
    The door closed by itself
  2. (emphatic) it; used to intensify the subject, especially to emphasize that it is the only participant in the predicate
    • 1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy. , 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed [by Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection iv, page 298:
      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.
    The door itself is quite heavy.
  3. (emphatic, archaic) it; used to refer back to an earlier subject
    • 1842, Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines:
      The oil by degrees gets covered with a curdy mass, which after some time settles to the bottom, while itself becomes limpid and colorless.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

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Anagrams