self

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“
The first bike I ever rode for my self was a little Honda ATC 70 (all pics taken from bikepics. com) that a family friend owned:

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Definitions (27)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. noun The total, essential, or particular being of a person; the individual: "An actor's instrument is the self” (Joan Juliet Buck).
  2. noun The essential qualities distinguishing one person from another; individuality: "He would walk a little first along the southern walls, shed his European self, fully enter this world” (Howard Kaplan).
  3. noun One's consciousness of one's own being or identity; the ego: "For some of us, the self's natural doubts are given in mesmerizing amplification by way of critics' negative assessments of our writing” (Joyce Carol Oates).
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Examples (50)

  • He did not, therefore, tell the king that the self was a delusion, because without a life of regular yoga, he would not be able to “see” this. —  Buddha
  • The philosophic theory that the self is the only reality. —  F ;SF; - vol 093 issue 04-05 - October-November 1997
  • Kaliayev: My person, my self is above you and your masters. —  The Just
  • In hip-hop, if you're not from a city with a reputation for being rough or in a major market, your chances for making a name for your self are as slim as the records your DJ spins. —  MVN
  • But if she's okay with saying she's a dog, then the technical term she is calling her self is a "bitch". —  Xpatriated Texan
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

personality ·  soul ·  being ·  reality ·  desire ·  truth ·  beauty ·  one ·  humanity ·  impulse ·  vision

Used in the same contextWord Family

self:   selves
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, selfsame, from Old English; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also Scots sel; sell; from Middle English self, silf, seolf, sulf (plural selfe. seolfe, selve, sulve, seolve, later selves; in oblique cases selven), from Anglo-Saxon self, seolf, silf, siolf, sylf, same, self, = Old Saxon self = OFries. self, selva = Old Dutch self, Dutch zelf = Middle Low German self, sulf, Low German sulv = Old High German selb, Middle High German selp, German selb (inflected selber, etc.), sclbst (uninflected) = Icelandic sjælfr, sjālfr = Swedish sjelf = Danish selv = Gothic (Moesogothic) silba, same, self; origin unknown: (a) in one view (Skeat) the orig. form *selba is perhaps for *seliba, ‘left to oneself.’ from se-, si- (Gothic (Moesogothic) si-k = Latin se, oneself, = Sanskrit sva, one's own self), + lib-, the base of Anglo-Saxon līfan, be left, lāf = Gothic (Moesogothic) laiba, a remuant, etc. (see leave, life, live). (b) In another view (Kluge) perhaps orig. ‘lord, possessor, owner,’ akin to Irish selb, possession; cf. Skt.patis, lord, with Lithuanian pats, self; cf. also own, v., owner, with the related own, a., which in some uses is nearly equivalent to self. The use of self in comp. to form the reflexive pronouns arose out of the orig. independent use of self following the personal pronouns, and agreeing with them in inflection, in Anglo-Saxon as follows: ic selfa (ic self), ‘I self’ (I myself), mīn selfes, ‘of me self’ (of myself), mē selfurn, ‘to me self’ (to myself), mēselfne, ‘me self’ (myself), plural wē selfe, ‘we self’ (we ourselves), etc.; so thū selfa (thū self), ‘thou self’ (thyself), thīn selfes, ‘of thee self’ (of thyself), etc., hē selfa (hē self), ‘he self’ (himself), his selfes. ‘of him self’ (of himself), etc., the adjective self becoming coalesced with the preceding pronoun in the oblique cases mine, my, me, our, thine, thy, thee, your, his, him, her, their, them, etc., these being ultimately reduced in each instance to a single form, which is practically the dative me, thee, him, her, them, etc. (in which the accusative was merged), mixed in part with the genitive mine, my, our, thine, thy, your, etc., these orig. genitives in time assuming the appearance of mere possessives, and self thus taking on the semblance of a noun governed by them, whence the later independent use of self as a noun (see III.). The reflexive combination me selfe, him selfe (selve), etc., came to be used, as the dative of reference, to indicate more distinctly the person referred to—'I (for) my self,’ ‘he (for) him self,’ etc., thus leading to the emphatic use. The former (Anglo-Saxon Middle English) adjective plural -e has now changed to the noun plural -es (selves, as in wolves, wives, etc.). Itself and oneself retain the original order of simple juxtaposition: it + self, one + self. In the more common one's self, self is treated as an independent noun.
 

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/sɛlf/
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