himself

See also: Himself

English

Alternative forms

• Himself (honorific)
• himselfe (obsolete)
• himselve (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English hymself, from Old English him selfum. Equivalent to him +‎ -self.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hɪmˈsɛlf/, /ɪ̈mˈsɛlf/

• Audio (UK):

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• Audio (US):

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• Hyphenation: him‧self
• Rhymes: -ɛlf

Pronoun

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

1. (reflexive pronoun) Him; the male object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject

   He injured himself.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.

   • 2024 September 9, Hannah Rabinowitz, “Alleged leaders of White supremacist group charged in effort to encourage terrorism and hate crimes”, in CNN‎:

     One Terrorgram user livestreamed himself stabbing five people outside of a mosque in Turkey, she said, and a 19-year-old Slovakian man praised the group in a manifesto before killing two people at an LGBTQ bar in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

2. (emphatic) He; used as an intensifier, often to emphasize that the referent is the exclusive participant in the predicate

   He was injured himself.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 7:14, column 2:

     Therefore the Lord himſelfe ſhal giue you a ſigne: […].

   • 2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892:

     The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.

3. (Ireland, otherwise archaic) The subject or non-reflexive object of a predicate; he himself.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 7, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     Yet it is that himselfe had been liberally gratified by his Unkle with militarie rewards, before ever he went to warres.

   • Sir John Denham (1614-1669)

     With shame remembers, while himself was one / Of the same herd, himself the same had done.

   • 1998, Kirk Jones, Waking Ned, Tomboy films:

     Dennis: His glass is there and himself is in the toilet.

4. (Ireland) The subject or non-reflexive object of a predicate; he (used of upper-class gentlemen, or sarcastically, of men who imagine themselves to be more important than others)

   Has himself come down to breakfast yet?

   Have you seen himself yet this morning?

Synonyms

• hisself
• hissen

Derived terms

• every man for himself
• give someone enough rope and they'll hang themself
• he who digs a pit for others falls in himself

Translations

(reflexive) male person as the previously mentioned object

Aghwan: 𐔼𐕖𐕒𐕡𐕎𐕖𐕒𐕡 (ičunču) Belarusian: сябе́ (sjabjé) (accusative, genitive), сабе́ (sabjé) (dative, locative), сабо́й (sabój) (instrumental); -цца (-cca) (verb ending) Catalan: es (ca) Czech: se (cs), sebe (cs) Dutch: zich (nl), zichzelf (nl) Esperanto: sin (eo) Finnish: itsensä (fi) French: lui-même (fr), à lui-même (fr), se (fr) German: sich (de) Greek: Ancient: ἑαυτόν (heautón), ἑαυτῷ (heautōî), ἑαυτοῦ (heautoû) Hungarian: magát (hu) Khakas: позы (pozı) Latin: sē (la), sēsē, sibi, suī (la) Mauritian Creole: limem Navajo: tʼáá bí, tʼáá hó Ngazidja Comorian: enafsi ya hahe Northern Sami: iežas Norwegian: seg (no) Portuguese: se (pt), si (pt) (prepositional), a si mesmo Romani: pes Kalo Finnish Romani: pes Romanian: se (ro) Russian: сам (ru) m (sam), себя́ (ru) (sebjá) (genitive case, accusative case), себе́ (ru) (sebé) (dative case, prepositional case), собо́й (ru) (sobój) (instrumental case) Scots: himsel Scottish Gaelic: e (non-emphatic), esan (emphatic) Slovak: sa (sk), seba Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: se Spanish: él mismo, sí mismo Swedish: sig (sv) Talysh: Asalemi: (for all persons) اشتن (əštan) Tuvan: боду (bodu) Volapük: oki Welsh: ei hun, ei hunan (South Wales) Yakut: бэйэтэ (beyete) Zazaki: eyeri m, ay f

(emphatic, exclusive) he

American Sign Language: A@Chesthigh SmallFrontandback Arabic: نَفْسَهُ m (nafsahu) Belarusian: ён сам m (jon sam) Catalan: mateix (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 他自己 (zh) (tā zìjǐ) Czech: sám (cs) Dutch: zelf (nl), hijzelf (nl) Egyptian: (ḏs.f m) Esperanto: li mem, si mem (reflexive emphatic) Finnish: itse (fi) French: lui-même (fr) German: er selbst Greek: Ancient: αὐτός (autós) Hungarian: maga (hu) Japanese: 彼自身 m (かれじしん, kare-jishin) Latin: ipse (la) Latvian: viņš pats m Norman: li-mesme (Guernsey) Northern Sami: ieš Portuguese: ele mesmo Romanian: el însuși m Russian: он сам m (on sam) Scots: himsel Scottish Gaelic: esan Slovak: sám Spanish: él mismo Ukrainian: він сам m (vin sam)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Interlingua: (please verify) ipse Italian: (please verify) lui stesso Korean: (please verify) 그 남자 자진 (geu namja jajin) Kurdish: Central Kurdish: (please verify) خۆی (xoy) Swedish: (please verify) sig själv (1, injured himself), (please verify) själv (sv) (1, was injured), (please verify) honom själv, (please verify) han själv (2)

See also

English personal pronouns

Dialectal and obsolete or archaic forms are in italics. personal pronoun possessive pronoun possessive determiner subjective objective reflexive first person singular I me (colloquial) me myself me mysen mine my mine (before vowels, archaic) me plural we us ourselves ourself oursen ours ourn (obsolete outside dialects) our second person singular standard (historically formal) you you yourself yoursen yours yourn (obsolete outside dialects) your archaic (historically informal) thou thee thyself theeself thysen thine thy thine (before vowels) plural standard you ye (archaic) you yourselves yours yourn (obsolete outside dialects) your colloquial you all y'all you guys yous you all y'all you guys yous y'allselves all yours y'all's you guys' your guys' all your y'all's your all's (nonstandard) you guys' your guys' informal / dialectal (see list of dialectal forms at you and inflected forms in those entries) third person singular masculine he him himself hisself (archaic) hissen his hisn (obsolete outside dialects) his feminine she her herself hersen hers hern (obsolete outside dialects) her neuter it hit it hit itself hitself its his (archaic) its his (archaic) hits genderless1 they them themself, themselves theirs their nonspecific (formal) one one oneself – one's plural they them hem, 'em themselves theirsen theirs theirn (obsolete outside dialects) their 1 See Appendix:English third-person singular pronouns for attested neopronouns.

Further reading

• “himself”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “himself”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Flemish, flemish, mehfils