ourselves
pronUK /aʊəˈsɛlvz/ · US /aʊɚˈsɛlvz/
Etymology Morphologically our + -selves.
1
Us; the group including the speaker as the object of a verb or preposition when that group also is the subject.
- We should keep this for ourselves.
- Let's not beat ourselves up over this.
2
Emphatic Intensifies the subject as the group including the speaker, especially to indicate that no one else satisfies the predicate or needs to be included.
- We did it ourselves.
3
Colloquial Referring to everyone being addressed.
- Come on everyone! Let's get ourselves up and out of bed, please.
- Now then children, I'm not going to help you with the next problem. We should be able to work this one out ourselves.
4
Colloquial Referring to an individual person being addressed, especially a person in the speaker's care; also ourself.
May seem patronising
- Coordinate term: nurse's we
- Hello Mrs Miggins. Did we manage to wash ourselves this morning?
1 more example
- Well done Timmy! Did we make that model ourselves?
- Derived terms
- between ourselves
- Related terms
55 terms
Ime, me, myselfmemysen, mine, mymineme, we, us, ourselvesourselfoursen, oursourn, our, you, yourselfyoursen, yoursyourn, your, thou, thee, thyselftheeselfthysen, thine, thythine, youye, yourselves, you ally'all you guys yous, y'allselves, all yours y'all's you guys' your guys', all your y'all's your all's you guys' your guys', he, him, himselfhisselfhissen, hishisn, his, she, her, herselfhersen, hershern, ithit, itselfhitself, itshis, itshishits, they, them, themself, themselves, theirs, their, one, oneself, –, one's, themhem, 'em, themselvestheirsen, theirstheirn, 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.- Coordinate terms
- ourself