himself

reflexive of he · feminine herself · neuter itself · plural themselves · gender neutral singular themselves · gender neutral singular themself · alternative honorific Himself · alternative obsolete himselfe · alternative obsolete himselve

1. masculinepersonalpronounreflexivesingularthird personHim; the male object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject

   He injured himself.

   2 more examples

   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.

   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

   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.

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

2. emphaticmasculinepersonalpronounsingularthird personHe; used as an intensifier, often to emphasize that the referent is the exclusive participant in the predicate

   He was injured himself.

   2 more examples

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

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

   The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason.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.

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

3. Irelandmasculinepersonalpronounsingularthird personotherwise archaicThe subject or non-reflexive object of a predicate; he himself.

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

   1998, Kirk Jones, Waking Ned, Tomboy films

   2 more examples

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

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 7, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

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

   Sir John Denham (1614-1669)

4. Irelandmasculinepersonalpronounsingularthird personThe 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?

   1 more example

   Have you seen himself yet this morning?

1. honorificHonorific alternative letter-case form of himself, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context.