What does "themselves" mean?

The reflexive case of they, the third-person plural personal pronoun. The group of people, animals, or objects previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis).

What is a synonym for "themselves"?

Common synonyms include: 'emselves, alter, alter ego, alterum, better self, ego.

Themselves

//ðɛmˈsɛlvz// pron

pron ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Pronoun

1
The reflexive case of they, the third-person plural personal pronoun. The group of people, animals, or objects previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis). pronoun, reflexive, third-person
"They’ve hurt themselves."
2
The reflexive case 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). pronoun, reflexive, third-person
"Would whoever stole my phone please make themselves known."

Synonyms

All synonyms

'emselves alter alter ego alterum better self ego

Example

More examples

"I don't like it when mathematicians who know much more than I do can't express themselves explicitly."

Etymology

Morphologically them + -selves.

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