Dictionary

themself en · PRON

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ðɛmˈsɛlf/

Etymology

From Middle English theimself. Equivalent to them + -self. Reinforced by analogy with the singular-plural distinction between yourself and yourselves.

Meanings

1. (pronoun, proscribed, reflexive, sometimes, third-person) The reflexive form of they, the third-person singular personal pronoun. The single person previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis).
   • ... somedays there will be an odd number of quadders and so somebody might have to sit by themself in the back. 2013 January 8, John Stoltenberg, Gonerz:
   • They’d chosen the name Salem to fit with their identity, but they’d almost never asked anyone to call them by it. It was easier — definitely not easy, but easier — to let themself be considered conventionally transgender, male to female, and go by the name Hannah. 2019 June 4, Daniel Bergner, “The Struggles of Rejecting the Gender Binary”, in The New York Times Magazine, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2019:
   • Someone could hurt themself.
   • Someone set themself on fire Friday at the plaza in front of the US Supreme Court building, a court spokesperson said. 2022 April 22, Jessica Schneider, “Person sets self on fire at Supreme Court plaza”, in CNN, Atlanta, Ga.: Warner Bros. Discovery, archived from the original on 23 Apr 2022:
   • Sometimes in modern usage They_(sg) has the reflexive form themself, as in Sometimes a person can surprise themself. (Microsoft Word’s grammar-checking tool doesn’t like this, and peremptorily changes it to themselves – what a nerve!) 2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 38:
   • THE author who masqueraded as Helen Demidenko yesterday urged the hoaxer who deceived the respected right-wing journal Quadrant to unmask themself. 2009 January 8, Samantha Maiden, “Hoaxer, out yourself: 'Demidenko'”, in The Australian, archived from the original on 15 Dec 2012:
   • Boys like to talk about themselves—much more than girls. A girl once, named Helen Walcott, told me (and she was the most popular debutante in Washington one winter) that as soon as she got her man talking about himself she had him cinched and harnessed—they give themself away. c. 1915, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “Babes in the Woods”, in John Kuehl, editor, The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1909–1917, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, published 1965, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 125:
   • Anyone who wants a car like mine can buy one themself.
   • After infinite wanderings the little note has reached us. […] Almost any one under the circumstances would have doubted if it were theirs, or indeed if they were themself—but to us it was clear. 1881 September 24, Emily Dickinson, “To the Misses ——”, in Mabel Loomis Todd, editor, Letters of Emily Dickinson, volume II, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1894, →OCLC, pages 290–291:
   • The 10th of April the Austrian General Göcz was defeated by Görgey at Vácz, where Leiningen highly distinguished themself. 1850, Theresa Pulszky, Memoirs of a Hungarian Lady, page 275:
   • […] they woulden't ^([sic]) always be trying to make Themself Look Diffarunt ^([sic]) from what nature made Them. 1899 December 6, “Paw Baldness”, in Shiner Gazette:
2. (nonstandard, proscribed, sometimes, third-person) Synonym of themselves (the third-person plural).
   • Antony.- That fear I much, cousin, too. But thereby shall it well, as I said, appear, that seemed they never so good and virtuous before, and flattered they themself with never so gay a gloss of good and gracious purpose that they kept their goods for, yet were their hearts inwardly in the deep sight of God, not sound and sure, such as they should be, and as peradventure some had themself weened they had been, […] 1847, Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, page 237:
   • […] and the same is here thought of al men to be so vailable and sufficient, as can be required, accept and take the said commission and dispensation so thankfully, and themself so satisfied with the same, that they repute and think themself not only singularly obstringed and bound to the Popes […] 1822, John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Relating Chiefly to Religion, page 119:

Forms

Synonyms

theirself · themselves · thonself · herself · themselves · other attested gender-neutral pronouns · himself · theirselves