Pronunciations
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/ðɛmˈsɛlf/
Pronoun
The reflexive form 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).
Usage- pronoun
- proscribed
- Reflexive
- sometimes
- third-person
- Examples
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Someone could hurt themself.
Anyone who wants a car like mine can buy one themself.
More examples (9)
The 10th of April the Austrian General Göcz was defeated by Görgey at Vácz, where Leiningen highly distinguished themself.
After infinite wanderings the little note has reached us. […] Almost any one under the circumstances would have doubted if it were theirs, or indeed if they were themself—but to us it was clear.
[…] they woulden't ^([sic]) always be trying to make Themself Look Diffarunt ^([sic]) from what nature made Them.
Boys like to talk about themselves—much more than girls. A girl once, named Helen Walcott, told me (and she was the most popular debutante in Washington one winter) that as soon as she got her man talking about himself she had him cinched and harnessed—they give themself away.
THE author who masqueraded as Helen Demidenko yesterday urged the hoaxer who deceived the respected right-wing journal Quadrant to unmask themself.
... somedays there will be an odd number of quadders and so somebody might have to sit by themself in the back.
They’d chosen the name Salem to fit with their identity, but they’d almost never asked anyone to call them by it. It was easier — definitely not easy, but easier — to let themself be considered conventionally transgender, male to female, and go by the name Hannah.
Someone set themself on fire Friday at the plaza in front of the US Supreme Court building, a court spokesperson said.
Sometimes in modern usage They_(sg) has the reflexive form themself, as in Sometimes a person can surprise themself. (Microsoft Word’s grammar-checking tool doesn’t like this, and peremptorily changes it to themselves – what a nerve!)
Synonym of themselves (the third-person plural).
Usage- nonstandard
- proscribed
- sometimes
- third-person
- Examples
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More examples (2)
[…] and the same is here thought of al men to be so vailable and sufficient, as can be required, accept and take the said commission and dispensation so thankfully, and themself so satisfied with the same, that they repute and think themself not only singularly obstringed and bound to the Popes […]
Antony.- That fear I much, cousin, too. But thereby shall it well, as I said, appear, that seemed they never so good and virtuous before, and flattered they themself with never so gay a gloss of good and gracious purpose that they kept their goods for, yet were their hearts inwardly in the deep sight of God, not sound and sure, such as they should be, and as peradventure some had themself weened they had been, […]