What does "emself" mean?

Em, a gender-neutral object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject, the reflexive form of em, equivalent to themself (also used for emphasis).

What is a synonym for "emself"?

Common synonyms include: eirself, hirself, themself, thonself, thonself.

Emself

pron

pron ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Pronoun

1
Em, a gender-neutral object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject, the reflexive form of em, equivalent to themself (also used for emphasis). gender-neutral, nonstandard, personal, pronoun, rare, reflexive, singular, third-person
"Eir sentences would sound smoother since ey wouldn't clutter them with the old sexist pronouns. And if ey should trip up in the new usage, ey would only have emself to blame."

Synonyms

All synonyms

eirself hirself themself thonself thonself

Example

More examples

"Eir sentences would sound smoother since ey wouldn't clutter them with the old sexist pronouns. And if ey should trip up in the new usage, ey would only have emself to blame."

Etymology

From em + -self, or by removing "th" from themself (cf. also 'emself, 'emselves).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.