themselves
/ðɛmˈsɛlvz/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.16 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
pron
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).
pron
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).
Example Sentences
- "They’ve hurt themselves."
- "They fought among themselves."
- "They are going to try climbing Mount Everest themselves."
- "The preposterous altruism too![…]Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog."
- "The real drama came as these two camps fought for undecideds, who literally found themselves in the middle."
- "Would whoever stole my phone please make themselves known."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ðɛmˈsɛlvz/
- British English: /ðɛmˈsɛlvz/
Inflected Forms
of they (reflexive)
Phrases
you ally'all you guys yous
all yours y'all's you guys' your guys'
all your y'all's your all's you guys' your guys'
The following table shows a list of English personal pronoun
including archaic and dialectal forms. Dialectal and obsolete
archaic forms are in italics. 1 See Appendix:English third-person singular pronouns for attested neopronoun.