Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • pronoun That one identical with me.
  • pronoun Used reflexively as the direct or indirect object of a verb or as the object of a preposition.
  • pronoun Used for emphasis.
  • pronoun Used in an absolute construction.
  • pronoun My normal or healthy condition or state.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An emphatic or reflexive form of the first personal pronoun I or me, either nominative or (as originally) objective.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • pronoun I or me in person; -- used for emphasis, my own self or person; as I myself will do it; I have done it myself; -- used also instead of me, as the object of the first person of a reflexive verb, without emphasis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun that being which is oneself

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English mi-self, from Old English mē selfum, mē selfne : , me; see me- in Indo-European roots + selfum, selfne, dative and accusative of self, self; see self.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From me (pronoun) + self (pronoun). Later partly reinterpreted as my + self (noun).

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Examples

  • But I take myself to museums, and buy myself flowers, and gucci handbags and pray that someday I grow up to make ~myself~ proud.

    wendchymes Diary Entry wendchymes 2007

  • At the moment, I keep finding myself talking on the phone with this beautiful boy… and I censor myself… me?!?!

    ugotsoul Diary Entry ugotsoul 2003

  • Things I have never thought before are being presented to myself through myself….

    lethalpickle Diary Entry lethalpickle 2001

  • But it does mean that when I can no longer protect my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on myself -- a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves -- I am not to _fret myself_, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears.

    The Conquest of Fear Basil King 1893

  • I have been selling myself -- my body, my face, my eyes, _myself, _ a little at a time, a little to each of them.

    The Law of the Land Emerson Hough 1890

  • I have got, I tell you, to look after _myself_, to plan my life for myself!

    The Case of Richard Meynell Humphry Ward 1885

  • Henceforward alone and cruelly distrustful of myself, I then took up sides — not without anger — _against myself_ and _for_ all that which hurt me and fell hard upon me; and thus I found the road to that courageous pessimism which is the opposite of all idealistic falsehood, and which, as it seems to me, is also the road to _me_ — _to my mission_.

    The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872

  • Yes, it is all very well for me to reason with myself, _to stiffen myself_, so to say; but I cannot remain at home, because I know he is there.

    The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) Boule de Suif and Other Stories Guy de Maupassant 1871

  • To say now that I never can forget; that I feel myself bound to you as one human being cannot be more bound to another; -- and that you are more to me at this moment than all the rest of the world; is only to say in new words that it would be a wrong against _myself_, to seem to risk your happiness and abuse your generosity.

    The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 Robert Browning 1850

  • After the court had heard the evidence of myself and Mr. Davis, Mr. Jekyl made a most eloquent appeal to the jury, a _common not_ a SPECIAL jury: he called some witnesses to their character, but no one appearing, _I offered myself_ to give three of them, who had been my father's servants, a character for sobriety and industry, with which the court and counsel appeared much pleased.

    Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 1 Henry Hunt 1804

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