itself - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (2024)

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Itself - Wiktionary, the free dictionary? ›

(reflexive) it; A thing as the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject The door closed by itself. (emphatic) it; used to intensify the subject, especially to emphasize that it is the only participant in the predicate quotations ▼ The door itself is quite heavy.

Thyself. 'Thyself' is ‌an archaic pronoun meaning 'yourself'. It is a reflexive pronoun and is used when talking to only one person. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself .

To communicate the idea: “Let's just think about this thing on its own without getting into the surrounding context.” In this case, in and of itself highlights the nature and quality of a thing just on its own terms. For instance: This award is—in and of itself—an honor, even without the money that comes with it.

synonyms: as such, intrinsically, per se.

You can recognize a reflexive pronoun by its second half: they all end in -self or -selves. • myself • yourself and yourselves • himself • herself • itself • ourselves • themselves. Only the dual-purpose your* has two reflexive forms: singular yourself and plural yourselves.

From Middle English myself, meself, from Old English mē selfum and similar phrases, equivalent to me + self, later partly reinterpreted as my + self / -self.

(ɪtself ) 1. pronoun. Itself is used as the object of a verb or preposition when it refers to something that is the same thing as the subject of the verb.

Itself merely functions as a pronoun for emphasis. In itself, however, adds more depth, as it specifically indicates the subject is being deliberately considered in all its possible ramifications.

“In itself” means something completely different, namely that we are considering something in isolation. For example: Driving my kids to their activities is a full-time job in itself. (The in itself phrase emphasizes that we are considering the driving alone, isolated from other responsibilities we might have.)

of itself (adverb as in per se) Weak matches. alone as such by and of itself by definition by its very nature by itself fundamentally in essence in itself independently intrinsically singularly solely virtually.

When a word defines itself? ›

An autological word is a word that is what it describes — it fits its own definition. The classic example is polysyllabic, a word that means having more than one syllable and does in fact itself have more than one syllable.

Janus was an ancient Roman god with two faces that looked in opposite directions, so you can see how he came to be associated with contronyms. (You might be surprised to know that Janus is also connected to the month of January.) Another term for these words is auto-antonym, or a word that means the opposite of itself.

pronoun. Britannica Dictionary definition of ITSELF. 1. : that same one: a — used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to something that has already been mentioned.

itself is a reflexive pronoun, commonly used to refer back to the subject of a sentence or clause.

Thyself is an old-fashioned, poetic, or religious word for `yourself' when you are talking to only one person.

Etymology. From Middle English hymself, from Old English him selfum.

Etymology. From Middle English self, silf, sulf, from Old English self, seolf, sylf, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

language note: Themselves is the third person plural reflexive pronoun. You use themselves to refer to people, animals, or things when the object of a verb or preposition refers to the same people or things as the subject of the verb. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves. The men talked amongst themselves.