Selves

How to spell selves

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce selves

What does selves mean?

1. nounThe plural of self: the individual personalities or identities of more than one person.

Selves in a sentence

• After the long holiday, the staff returned to their usual selves.

• The twins are very different selves, despite looking identical.

Where does selves come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is simply the plural of self, a thoroughly native English word descending from the Old English seolf or self, meaning 'one's own person or identity'. The word goes back to a common Germanic root shared with Dutch zelf and German selbst, all carrying the sense of the individual considered as distinct from others. English nouns that end in an f sound have long tended to swap that f for a v when made plural, which is why we say leaves for leaf, wolves for wolf, and selves for self. That pronunciation shift was then written into the spelling, so the singular self quietly becomes selves rather than selfs. The pattern is the real spelling trap here: writers who reach for selfs are following the regular rule, but selves preserves the older Germanic softening that English kept for this particular set of words.

How the word is built

• self (one's own person)
• -ves (plural, with the f of self softened to v)