myself

reflexive case of I · alternative nonstandard meself · alternative obsolete myselfe

1. pronounreflexiveMe, as direct or indirect object the speaker as the object of a verb or preposition, when the speaker is also the subject.First known use 9th c.

   I taught myself.

   3 more examples

   (I) don’t think much of your new car, myself.

   Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   “If you were a little bit kinder to yourself today, or if you gained insight, if you had an ‘Aha’ like, ‘Oh, man, I really do talk to myself the way my mom talked to me,’ or you identify a childhood wound … all of that is a form of reparenting,” she said.

   2025 April 28, Madeline Holcombe, “It might be time to ‘reparent’ yourself. Here’s how to get started”, in CNN

2. 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.First known use 10th c.

   I myself have witnessed the event.

3. In my normal state of body or mind.

   I feel like myself.

4. proscribedMe, as the object of a verb or preposition without a reflexive trigger. Sometimes used for intensifying the pronoun of oneself.First known use 10th c.

   Give the ball to John or myself.

5. archaicproscribedI (as the subject of a verb).First known use 14th c.

   My wife and myself want to go on vacation.

   2 more examples

   And my selfe have knowen a Gentleman, a chiefe officer of our crowne, that by right and hope of succession (had he lived unto it) was to inherit above fifty thousand crownes a yeere good land[…].

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

   Myself am confident that an ointment of it is one of the best remedies for a scabby head that is.

   1653, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged

6. IndiaPakistannonstandardmy name is...

   Myself John.

1. Alternative letter-case form of myself used when speaking as God or another important figure who is understood from context.