itself

• it self, it selfe (obsolete)

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

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɪtˈsɛlf/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɪtˈself/
• Rhymes: -ɛlf

itself (the third person singular, neuter, personal pronoun, the reflexive form of it, masculine himself, feminine herself, gender-neutral themself, plural themselves)

1. (reflexive pronoun) it; A thing as the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject

   The door closed by itself

2. (emphatic) it; used to intensify the subject, especially to emphasize that it is the only participant in the predicate
   • 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:

     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.

   The door itself is quite heavy.

3. (emphatic, archaic) it; used to refer back to an earlier subject
   • 1842, Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines:

     The oil by degrees gets covered with a curdy mass, which after some time settles to the bottom, while itself becomes limpid and colorless.

• itsself (obsolete)

• flites, elfist, filets, fistle, stifle, fliest