ourselves

English

Etymology

Morphologically our +‎ -selves.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /aʊəˈsɛlvz/, /ɑːˈsɛlvz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /aʊɚˈsɛlvz/, /ɑɹˈsɛlvz/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlvz

Pronoun

ourselves (first personal plural pronoun, reflexive case of we)

1. (reflexive) Us; the group including the speaker as the object of a verb or preposition when that group also is the subject.

   We should keep this for ourselves.

   Let's not beat ourselves up over this.

2. (emphatic) Intensifies the subject as the group including the speaker, especially to indicate that no one else satisfies the predicate or needs to be included.

   We did it ourselves.

3. (colloquial) Referring to everyone being addressed.

   Come on everyone! Let's get ourselves up and out of bed, please. (reflexive)

   Now then children, I'm not going to help you with the next problem. We should be able to work this one out ourselves. (emphatic)

4. (colloquial, may seem patronising) Referring to an individual person being addressed, especially a person in the speaker's care; also ourself.

   Coordinate term: nurse's we

   Hello Mrs Miggins. Did we manage to wash ourselves this morning? (reflexive)

   Well done Timmy! Did we make that model ourselves? (emphatic)

Synonyms

• usself (obsolete or dialectal)
• weself (Jamaican)

Coordinate terms

• ourself (for the singular "we")

Derived terms

• between ourselves

Translations

reflexive: us

Arabic: أَنْفُسَنَا (ʔanfusanā) Belarusian: сябе́ (sjabjé) (accusative, genitive), сабе́ (sabjé) (dative, locative), сабо́й (sabój) (instrumental); -цца (-cca) (verb ending) Catalan: ens (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 我們自己 / 我们自己, 我们自己 (wǒmén zìjǐ) Esperanto: ni (eo), nin (eo) Finnish: itsemme (fi) Hungarian: magunk (hu), magunkat (accusative) Ido: ni ipsa Irish: sinn féin Italian: ci (it) (clitic), noi stessi m pl, noi stesse f pl Khakas: позыбыс (pozıbıs) Nahuatl: tehhuān Northern Sami: iežame du, iežamet pl Portuguese: nos (pt), nós (pt) Romani: amen Romanian: noi înșine m, noi însene f Russian: себя́ (ru) (sebjá) Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: se Spanish: nos (es), nosotros (es) Sranan Tongo: wisrefi Swedish: oss själva Tuvan: бодувус (boduvus) Ukrainian: себе́ (sebé), собі́ (uk) (sobí) Welsh: ein hun, ein hunan (South Wales) Yakut: бэйэбит (beyebit)

emphatic: we

American Sign Language: A@IpsiChest-RadialBack A@ContraChest-RadialBack Arabic: أَنْفُسَنَا (ʔanfusanā) Belarusian: мы са́мі (my sámi) Catalan: mateixos (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 我們自己 / 我们自己, 我们自己 (wǒmén zìjǐ) Esperanto: ni mem (eo) Finnish: itse (fi) Irish: sinn féin Latvian: mēs paši m pl, mēs pašas f pl Nahuatl: tehhuāntin Northern Sami: ieža Portuguese: nós mesmos Russian: са́ми (ru) (sámi) Slovak: my sami, my same Spanish: nosotros mismos Swedish: (vi (sv)) själva (sv) Ukrainian: ми сами́ (my samý), ми самі́ (my samí)

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

Dutch: (please verify) onszelf (nl) French: (please verify) nous-mêmes (fr) German: (please verify) wir selbst Italian: (please verify) noi stessi Japanese: (please verify) 我々自身 (われわれじしん, wareware jishin) Korean: (please verify) 우리 자신 (uri jasin)

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 you all y'all you guys 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.