Herself

How to spell herself

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce herself

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does herself mean?

1. pronounThe reflexive or emphatic form of 'she', referring back to a female subject already mentioned.

Herself in a sentence

• She taught herself to play the piano over the summer.

• The manager prefers to handle the difficult clients herself.

Where does herself come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, formed in Old English by joining the pronoun 'her' to 'self', which meant one's own person or being. The 'self' element traces back to the Old English 'self' or 'seolf', a Germanic word shared with relatives such as Dutch 'zelf' and German 'selbst'. Reflexive pronouns of this type were built up gradually: 'self' began as an emphasising word meaning 'the very same', so 'her self' originally stressed that it was she and no one else. Over the centuries the two parts fused into a single written word, which is why we write 'herself' rather than 'her self' today. The pattern matches the whole family of reflexives such as myself, yourself and themselves, all of which simply combine a pronoun with that same 'self'.

How the word is built

• her (objective/possessive of 'she')
• self (one's own person)