How do you use the word "itself" in a sentence?

Q: How do you use the word "itself" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "itself": Your sense of humor is beginning to exert itself. The phenomenon of interest is in itself, a most interesting subject.

Itself Meaning

/ɪtˈsɛlf/

Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

pronit; A thing as the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject

pronit; used to intensify the subject, especially to emphasize that it is the only participant in the predicate

Sentence Examples

Your sense of humor is beginning to exert itself.

The phenomenon of interest is in itself, a most interesting subject.

CEFR Practice Quiz

The computer automatically shut ____ down to save energy after being idle.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

The cat licked ____ clean after it finished eating its bowl of delicious and fresh fish.

Word Origin & History

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

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"The researchers posit that something they call the “hipster effect” asserts itself in human populations no matter how individualistic we imagine ourselves to be, because it’s individuality itself that sparks conformity." — 2014 December 2, David DiSalvo, “Are You Vulnerable to the Hipster Effect?”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2025:

"Beautie alone is a ſoveraigne remedy againſt feare,griefe,and all melancholy fits; a charm,as Peter de la Seine and many other writers affirme,a banquet it ſelfe;he gives inſtance in diſcontented Menelaus that was ſo often freed by Helenas faire face: and ʰTully, 3 Tusc. cites Epicurus as a chiefe patron of this Tenent." — 1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection iv, page 298:

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." — 1933 March 4, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 0:00:55 from the start, in Inaugural Address:

"The oil by degrees gets covered with a curdy mass, which after some time settles to the bottom, while itself becomes limpid and colorless." — 1842, Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines:

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