Myself Meaning
/maɪˈsɛlf/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
pronMe, as direct or indirect object the speaker as the object of a verb or preposition, when the speaker is also the subject.
pronPersonally, for my part; used in apposition to I, sometimes for simple emphasis and sometimes with implicit exclusion of any others performing the activity described.
Sentence Examples
I'd be unhappy, but I wouldn't kill myself.
I'm so dumb... I'm trying to explain things to you that I don't understand myself.
I cut myself on a knife.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The confidential secret was known only to ____ and my closest friend in the world.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I decided to paint the entire living room by ____ during the weekend, but I soon realized that it was a much bigger job than I had expected.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English myself, meself, from Old English mē selfum and similar phrases, equivalent to me + self, later partly reinterpreted as my + self / -self. Cognate with Scots mysel, mysell (“myself”), West Frisian mysels (“myself”), Dutch mijzelf (“myself”), German mich selbst, mir selbst (“myself”), Norwegian Bokmål meg selv (“myself”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”"
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"“If you were a little bit kinder to yourself today, or if you gained insight, if you had an ‘Aha’ like, ‘Oh, man, I really do talk to myself the way my mom talked to me,’ or you identify a childhood wound … all of that is a form of reparenting,” she said."
— 2025 April 28, Madeline Holcombe, “It might be time to ‘reparent’ yourself. Here’s how to get started”, in CNN:
"And my selfe have knowen a Gentleman, a chiefe officer of our crowne, that by right and hope of succession (had he lived unto it) was to inherit above fifty thousand crownes a yeere good land[…]."
— 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
"Myself am confident that an ointment of it is one of the best remedies for a scabby head that is."
— 1653, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The confidential secret was known only to ____ and my closest friend in the world.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I decided to paint the entire living room by ____ during the weekend, but I soon realized that it was a much bigger job than I had expected.