Definition of "himself"

himself

/hɪmˈsɛlf/

pronoun
the third person singular, masculine, personal pronoun, reflexive form of he, feminine herself, neuter itself, plural themselves, gender-neutral singular himself or themselves or themself
1. (reflexive) Him; the male object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject
  Quotations
  Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
2. (emphatic) He; used as an intensifier, often to emphasize that the referent is the exclusive participant in the predicate
  Quotations
  Therefore the Lord himſelfe ſhal giue you a ſigne: […].
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Isaiah 7:14, column 2
  The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.
  2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892
3. (Ireland, otherwise archaic) The subject or non-reflexive object of a predicate; he himself.
  Quotations
  Yet it is that himselfe had been liberally gratified by his Unkle with militarie rewards, before ever he went to warres.
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 7, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
  With shame remembers, while himself was one / Of the same herd, himself the same had done.
  Sir John Denham (1614-1669)
  Dennis: His glass is there and himself is in the toilet.
  1998, Kirk Jones, Waking Ned, Tomboy films
4. (Ireland) The subject or non-reflexive object of a predicate; he (used of upper-class gentlemen, or sarcastically, of men who imagine themselves to be more important than others)

Definition of "himself"

himself

pronoun

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations