Yourself

How to spell yourself

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce yourself

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does yourself mean?

1. pronounThe reflexive or emphatic form of 'you', referring back to the person being addressed.

Yourself in a sentence

• You should treat yourself to a proper break after this project.

• Pour yourself a coffee and sit down for a moment.

Where does yourself come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a compound built from two native English elements that go back to Old English. The first part, 'your', descends from the Old English possessive 'eower', meaning 'belonging to you', while 'self' comes from Old English 'self' or 'seolf', meaning 'one's own person'. The two were originally written and spoken separately, as in phrases like 'your own self', but by the Middle English period they had fused into a single reflexive pronoun. Most other reflexive pronouns, such as 'myself' and 'herself', combine the possessive form with 'self' in the same way, which is exactly why the spelling keeps the whole word 'your' intact rather than reducing to 'you'. The common slip is writing 'youself' by accident, dropping the 'r' that the 'your' element demands.

How the word is built

• your (possessive of you)
• self (one's own person)