themselves
Syllables: them·selvesUK/ðɛmˈsɛlvz/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/ðemˈselvz/
themselves pronoun: 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
themselves (third-person, reflexive of they)
- 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).
- They’ve hurt themselves.
- They fought among themselves.
- 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).
- Would whoever stole my phone please make themselves known.
- I don't want anyone to fight among themselves.
Examples of themselves in a sentence
- They are going to try climbing Mount Everest themselves.
- Everyone must do it themselves.
- 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.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- The real drama came as these two camps fought for undecideds, who literally found themselves in the middle.2008 February 17, Jennifer Finney Boylan, “At the Maine Caucuses, a Tough Nut to Crack”, in The New York Times, archived from the original...
- Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Philippians 2:3:
- In fact she was so busy doing all the things that anyone might, who finds themselves alone in an empty house, that she did not notice at first when it began to turn dusk and the rooms to grow dim.1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 18:
Synonyms of themselves
Forms of themselves
| reflexive | of they |
|---|
Origin of themselves
Morphologically them + -selves.
Phrases with themselves
- ends in themselves
- fools to themselves
- in and of themselves
- laws unto themselves
- the jokes write themselves
- God helps them who help themselves
- God helps them that help themselves
- God helps those who help themselves
- heaven helps those who help themselves
- heaven helps those that help themselves
- the Lord helps those who help themselves
- the Lord helps those that help themselves
Words that rhyme with themselves
Questions about themselves
- What does themselves mean?
- Themselves means 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).
- How do you use themselves in a sentence?
- They are going to try climbing Mount Everest themselves.
- What part of speech is themselves?
- Themselves is a pronoun.
- How do you pronounce themselves?
- Themselves is pronounced /ðɛmˈsɛlvz/ (UK).
Words near themselves in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: themselves (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-themselves.ogg.
Cite this entry: “themselves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/themselves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.