myself

The story

1. Old English · inherited frommē
2. Middle English · inherited frommyself
3. English todaymyself

From Middle English myself, meself, from Old English mē selfum and similar phrases, equivalent to me + self, later partly reinterpreted as my + self / -self. Cognate with Scots mysel, mysell (“myself”), West Frisian mysels (“myself”), Dutch mijzelf (“myself”), German mich selbst, mir selbst (“myself”), Norwegian Bokmål meg selv (“myself”).

Words from the same roots

First known use, by meaning

• from 9th c. Me, as direct or indirect object the speaker as the object of a verb or preposition, when the speaker is also the subject.
• from 10th c. Personally, for my part; used in apposition to I, sometimes for simple emphasis and sometimes with implicit exclusion of any others performing the activity described.
• from 10th c. Me, as the object of a verb or preposition without a reflexive trigger. Sometimes used for intensifying the pronoun of oneself.
• from 14th c. I (as the subject of a verb).