Pronunciations (4)
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/ˈsɛlf/
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/ˈsɛf/
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/ˈsɛl/
Pronunciation notes
- Northumbria
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sɛlf
Pronoun
Himself, herself, itself, themself, themselves; that specific (person mentioned).
Usage- Obsolete
- Rare
- Examples
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This argument was put forward by the defendant self.
Now that I put on my glasses I could see that the hut was empty but for our two selves; that it must have been absolutely empty till we entered.
Myself, oneself.
Usage- Humorous
- Examples
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I made out a cheque, payable to self, which cheered me up somewhat.
Noun
One individual's personality, character, demeanor, or disposition.
- Examples
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She remained her usual cheerful self despite recent setbacks
More examples (1)
John Locke argued that the mind is not like a furnished flat, prestocked before occupation with innate ideas, but like a home put together piecemeal from mental acquisitions picked up bit by bit. The self is thus the bit-by-bit product of experience and education: we are what we become - or, in Wordworth's later phrase, the child is the father of the man. Particular parents, surroundings and stimuli produce individuated selves. Identity is thus unique because contingent, the cumulative product of ceaseless occurrences.
The subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions, thoughts.
- Examples
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Portia: To these injunctions every one doth swear That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
More examples (1)
Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
An individual person as the object of the person's own reflective consciousness (plural selves).
- Examples
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More examples (2)
The self, the I, is recognized in every act of intelligence as the subject to which that act belongs. It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, I that attend, I that compare, I that feel, I that will, I that am conscious.
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.
Self-interest or personal advantage.
A seedling produced by self-pollination (plural selfs).
A flower having its colour uniform as opposed to variegated.
Any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).
- Examples
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More examples (2)
Similarity profiles between helper T cell epitopes (of self or microbial antigens and allergens) and human or microbial SWISSPROT collections were produced. For each antigen, both collections yielded largely overlapping profiles, demonstrating that self-nonself discrimination does not rely on qualitative features that distinguish human from microbial peptides. [...] Epitopes (on self and nonself antigens) can cross-stimulate T cells at increasing potency as their similarity with nonself augments.
In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.
Verb
To fertilize by the same individual; to self-fertilize or self-pollinate.
To fertilize by the same strain; to inbreed.
Adjective
Having its own or a single nature or character throughout, as in colour, composition, etc., without addition or change; of the same kind; unmixed.
- Examples
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a self bow: one made from a single piece of wood
a self flower or plant: one which is wholly of one colour
Same, identical.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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self-coloured
More examples (1)
I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth / That which I owe is lost; but if you please / To shoot another arrow that self way / Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, / As I will watch the aim, or to find both, / Or bring your latter hazard back again, / And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
I am made of that self mettle as my sister.
More examples (2)
But were it granted, yet the heighth of these Mountains is far under the supposed place of Paradise; and on these self Hills the Air is so thin […]
At that self moment enters Palamon / The gate of Venus […]
Belonging to oneself; own.
Usage- Obsolete
Of or relating to any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).
- Antonyms
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Similarity profiles between helper T cell epitopes (of self or microbial antigens and allergens) and human or microbial SWISSPROT collections were produced. For each antigen, both collections yielded largely overlapping profiles, demonstrating that self-nonself discrimination does not rely on qualitative features that distinguish human from microbial peptides. However, epitopes whose probability of mimicry with self or nonself prevails are, respectively, tolerated or immunodominant and coexist within the same (auto-)antigen regardless of its self/nonself nature. Epitopes (on self and nonself antigens) can cross-stimulate T cells at increasing potency as their similarity with nonself augments.
Adjective
(used as a combining form) relating to — of or by or to or from or for — the self
- Examples
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self-knowledge
self-proclaimed
More examples (1)
self-induced
Noun
your consciousness of your own identity
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a person considered as a unique individual
- Examples
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one's own self