Itself

//ɪtˈsɛlf// pron

pron ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Pronoun
  1. 1
    it; A thing as the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject neuter, personal, pronoun, reflexive, singular, third-person

    "When the opportunity presented itself, no feasible course of action suggested itself (to us)."

  2. 2
    it; used to intensify the subject, especially to emphasize that it is the only participant in the predicate emphatic, neuter, personal, pronoun, singular, third-person

    "The door itself is quite heavy."

  3. 3
    it; used to refer back to an earlier subject archaic, emphatic, neuter, personal, pronoun, singular, third-person

    "The oil by degrees gets covered with a curdy mass, which after some time settles to the bottom, while itself becomes limpid and colorless."

Synonyms

All synonyms
alteralter egoalterumbetter selfegoethical self

Example

More examples

"Your sense of humor is beginning to exert itself."

Etymology

From Middle English hit-self, equivalent to it + -self.

Related phrases

a house divided against itself cannot standbeing-for-itselfbeing-in-itselfdense-in-itselfend in itselfhistory repeats itselfin and of itselfin itselfin-itselfnesslend itself toof itselfpay for itself

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