oneself, pron.
(wʌnˈsɛlf)
Also 6– ones, one's self.
[orig. one's self (see one 21 and self), after my self, etc.; afterwards assimilated to himself, itself.]
An emphatic or distinctive equivalent of the indefinite pronoun one, used chiefly in the objective (after vb. or prep.) or (in sense 1) as a nominative in apposition. The corresponding possessive is one's own: ‘occupied with oneself and one's own affairs.’
1. Emphatic use: A person's self; himself or herself (meaning or including the speaker or writer).
| 1621 Lady M. Wroth Urania 505 Griefe is felt but by one's selfe. 1837 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. I. 65 A letter behoves to tell about oneself. 1843 Palmerston in L. C. Sanders Life (1888) 15 If one does not know something of them oneself. 1848 Dickens Dombey v, One might wear the articles one's-self. c 1886 Pall Mall G., Oneself after all is the subject in which a man is most deeply interested. Mod. If it were said to oneself, one would resent it. |
2. Reflexive use: objective case of one 21, as ‘One is obliged to keep oneself by oneself.’
In this sense often stressless; e.g. to betake oneself.
| 1548 R. Hutten Sum of Diuinitie C vj b, To exalt ones selfe aboue other men. 1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. iv. vi. (1848) 209 To estimate ones self not by the testimonies of ones Conscience. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. iii. §12 It were folly to sacrifice one's-self for the sake of such. 1768 Blackstone Comm. IV. xiv. 181 The Roman law also justifies homicide, when committed in defence of the chastity either of one⁓self or relations. 1827 Lytton Pelham xxiii, To be pleased with oneself is the surest way of offending every-body else. 1862 Trollope Orley F. lv, To sit down to dinner all by oneself! 1881 Besant & Rice Chapl. of Fleet ii. ii. (1883) 129 To dress one's self in the morning to the accompaniment of sweet music. 1887 Jessopp Arcady iii. 66 To project oneself at will into remote periods in the past. |