self

plural selves · alternative obsolete selfe · alternative obsolete silf · alternative obsolete silfe

1. obsoleterareHimself, herself, itself, themself, themselves; that specific (person mentioned).

   This argument was put forward by the defendant self.

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   Now that I put on my glasses I could see that the hut was empty but for our two selves; that it must have been absolutely empty till we entered.

   1898 July 18, The Leader, Melbourne, page 34, column 1

2. humorousbusinessMyself, oneself.

   I made out a cheque, payable to self, which cheered me up somewhat.

plural selves · plural selfs · alternative obsolete selfe · alternative obsolete silf · alternative obsolete silfe

1. One individual's personality, character, demeanor, or disposition.

   She remained her usual cheerful self despite recent setbacks

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   John Locke argued that the mind is not like a furnished flat, prestocked before occupation with innate ideas, but like a home put together piecemeal from mental acquisitions picked up bit by bit. The self is thus the bit-by-bit product of experience and education: we are what we become - or, in Wordworth's later phrase, the child is the father of the man. Particular parents, surroundings and stimuli produce individuated selves. Identity is thus unique because contingent, the cumulative product of ceaseless occurrences.

   2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.1, at p.7

2. The subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions, thoughts.

   Portia: To these injunctions every one doth swear That comes to hazard for my worthless self.

   c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ix]

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   Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

   1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056

3. An individual person as the object of the person's own reflective consciousness (plural selves).

   The preposterous altruism too![…]Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

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   The self, the I, is recognized in every act of intelligence as the subject to which that act belongs. It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, I that attend, I that compare, I that feel, I that will, I that am conscious.

   a. 1857, William Hamilton, “Lecture IX”, in H[enry] L[ongueville] Mansel and John Veitch, editors, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1859–1860, →OCLC

4. Self-interest or personal advantage.
5. biologyA seedling produced by self-pollination (plural selfs).
6. biologyA flower having its colour uniform as opposed to variegated.
7. molecular biologyimmunologyAny molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).

   In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.

   2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3

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   Similarity profiles between helper T cell epitopes (of self or microbial antigens and allergens) and human or microbial SWISSPROT collections were produced. For each antigen, both collections yielded largely overlapping profiles, demonstrating that self-nonself discrimination does not rely on qualitative features that distinguish human from microbial peptides. [...] Epitopes (on self and nonself antigens) can cross-stimulate T cells at increasing potency as their similarity with nonself augments.

   2000, G Ristori et al., “Compositional bias and mimicry toward the nonself proteome in immunodominant T cell epitopes of self and nonself antigens”, in FASEB Journal: the official journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, volume 14, number 3, →PMID, pages 431–438

present singular third person selfs · participle present selfing · participle past selfed · past selfed · alternative obsolete selfe · alternative obsolete silf · alternative obsolete silfe

1. biologyTo fertilize by the same individual; to self-fertilize or self-pollinate.
2. biologyTo fertilize by the same strain; to inbreed.

alternative obsolete selfe · alternative obsolete silf · alternative obsolete silfe

1. Having its own or a single nature or character throughout, as in colour, composition, etc., without addition or change; of the same kind; unmixed.

   a self bow: one made from a single piece of wood

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   a self flower or plant: one which is wholly of one colour

2. obsoleteSame, identical.

   self-coloured

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   I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth / That which I owe is lost; but if you please / To shoot another arrow that self way / Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, / As I will watch the aim, or to find both, / Or bring your latter hazard back again, / And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

   c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   I am made of that self mettle as my sister.

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   But were it granted, yet the heighth of these Mountains is far under the supposed place of Paradise; and on these self Hills the Air is so thin […]

   1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5)

   At that self moment enters Palamon / The gate of Venus […]

   1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

3. obsoleteBelonging to oneself; own.
4. molecular biologyimmunologyOf or relating to any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).

   1 more example

   Similarity profiles between helper T cell epitopes (of self or microbial antigens and allergens) and human or microbial SWISSPROT collections were produced. For each antigen, both collections yielded largely overlapping profiles, demonstrating that self-nonself discrimination does not rely on qualitative features that distinguish human from microbial peptides. However, epitopes whose probability of mimicry with self or nonself prevails are, respectively, tolerated or immunodominant and coexist within the same (auto-)antigen regardless of its self/nonself nature. Epitopes (on self and nonself antigens) can cross-stimulate T cells at increasing potency as their similarity with nonself augments.

   2000, G Ristori et al., “Compositional bias and mimicry toward the nonself proteome in immunodominant T cell epitopes of self and nonself antigens”, in FASEB Journal: the official journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, volume 14, number 3, →PMID, pages 431–438

   Antonyms: nonself

1. A surname.

   Kansas has self-imposed a four-game suspension for head coach Bill Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend to begin this season along with several other sanctions, the school announced Wednesday.

   2022 November 2, CJ Moore, Dana O'Neil, “Kansas self-imposes 4-game suspension for Bill Self, Kurtis Townsend: Explaining the sanctions”, in The Athletic, archived from the original on 14 Jan 2026

2. A freed slave surname originating as an occupation.
3. An unincorporated community in Boone County, Arkansas, United States.