themselves
pronoun /ðəmˈselvz/Definition
A2 used when the subject of the verb is 'they' or a group of people, and the object is the same group of people: They asked themselves where they had gone wrong. Did the children enjoy themselves at the party?Reflexive forms › used for emphasis when the subject is 'they': They themselves had no knowledge of what was happening. (all) by themselves › alone or without help from anyone else: Small children should not be left by themselves. They collected the evidence all by themselves . (all) to themselves › for their use only: They had the whole campsite to themselves.
(Definition of themselves pronoun from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Linguistics: reflexive forms, but you might be interested in these topics from the Language topic area:
- Figurative use of language
- Foreign words & phrases used in English
- Forms of languages & specialist dialects
- Forms of the English language
- Language names
- Letters of alphabets
- Linguistic terms & linguistic style
- Linguistics: both, all, each & every
- Linguistics: connecting words joining words or phrases with similar or related meanings
- Linguistics: connecting words which express a condition
- Linguistics: connecting words which express a contrast
- Linguistics: connecting words which introduce a cause or reason
- Linguistics: expressions telling people to stop doing something
- Linguistics: grammatical terms
- Linguistics: intensifying expressions
- Linguistics: interjections
- Linguistics: morphology & parts of words
- Linguistics: parts of speech
- Linguistics: personal pronouns
- Linguistics: phonology & phonetics
- Linguistics: possessive forms
- Linguistics: question words & expressions
- Linguistics: relative forms
- Linguistics: sentences & expressions
- Linguistics: sounds used as interjections
- Linguistics: terminology & vocabulary
- Linguistics: verb forms, tenses & types of verbs
- Linguistics: very & extreme
- Punctuation
- Using other languages
- Ways of speaking
Browse the Dictionary
Browse the Thesaurus
More Results for “themselves”
Word of the Day
throw caution to the wind/winds
to do something without worrying about the risk or negative results
Blog
Read our blog about how the English language behaves.
New Words
Find words and meanings that have just started to be used in English, and let us know what you think of them.
