different between self vs selfly

English

Alternative forms

• (obsolete) selfe,
• (obsolete, rare) silf, silfe

Etymology

From Middle English self, silf, sulf, from Old English self, seolf, sylf, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?lf/
• Rhymes: -?lf

Pronoun

self

1. (obsolete) Himself, herself, itself, themselves; that specific (person mentioned).

   This argument was put forward by the defendant self.

2. (commercial or humorous) Myself.

   I made out a cheque, payable to self, which cheered me up somewhat.

Noun

self (plural selves or selfs)

1. One individual's personality, character, demeanor, or disposition.

2. The subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions, thoughts.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II scene ix^[1]:

     Portia:

     To these injunctions every one doth swear

     That comes to hazard for my worthless self.

   • Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

3. An individual person as the object of the person's own reflective consciousness (plural selves).
   • 1859, Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic Lecture IX

     The self, the I, is recognized in every act of intelligence as the subject to which that act belongs. It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, I that attend, I that compare, I that feel, I that will, I that am conscious.
4. Self-interest or personal advantage.
5. Identity or personality.
6. (botany) A seedling produced by self-pollination (plural selfs).
7. (botany) A flower having its colour uniform as opposed to variegated.
8. (molecular biology, immunology) Any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).

Antonyms

• (immunology) nonself

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• self-
• person
• I
• ego

Verb

self (third-person singular simple present selfs, present participle selfing, simple past and past participle selfed)

1. (botany) To fertilise by the same individual; to self-fertilise or self-pollinate.
2. (botany) To fertilise by the same strain; to inbreed.

Antonyms

• outcross

Adjective

self

1. Having its own or a single nature or character throughout, as in colour, composition, etc., without addition or change; of the same kind; unmixed.

   a self bow: one made from a single piece of wood

   a self flower or plant: one which is wholly of one colour

2. (obsolete) Same, identical.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I scene i^[2]:

     I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth

     That which I owe is lost; but if you please

     To shoot another arrow that self way

     Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,

     As I will watch the aim, or to find both,

     Or bring your latter hazard back again,

     And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I scene i^[3]:

     I am made of that self mettle as my sister.

   • But were it granted, yet the heighth of these Mountains is far under the supposed place of Paradise; and on these self Hills the Air is so thin […]

   • 1700, John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite

     At that self moment enters Palamon
     The gate of Venus […]

3. (obsolete) Belonging to oneself; own.
4. (molecular biology, immunology) Of or relating to any molecule, cell, or tissue of an organism's own (belonging to the self), as opposed to a foreign (nonself) molecule, cell, or tissue (for example, infective, allogenic, or xenogenic).

Antonyms

• (immunologic sense) nonself

Further reading

• self in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• self in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Self in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• “self”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year).

Anagrams

• FLES, LSFE, elfs

Danish

Alternative forms

• self.

Adverb

self

1. (Internet slang) Abbreviation of selvfølgelig (“of course”).

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (salaf).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?lf/

Noun

self m

1. loan

Middle English

Alternative forms

• silf, sulf

Etymology

From Old English self, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?lf/

Adjective

self

1. (the) (very/self) same, (the) aforementioned
2. Intensifies the pronoun or noun it follows or precedes; very
3. (+genitive) own

Descendants

• English: self
• Scots: self, sel

References

• “self, adj., n., & pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-31.

Pronoun

self

1. themself, themselves; a reflexive pronoun
2. that, this

Descendants

• English: self (obsolete in most pronominal senses)
• Scots: self, sel

References

• “self, adj., n., & pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-31.

Noun

self (plural selfs)

1. (the) same thing, (the) aforementioned thing

References

• “self, adj., n., & pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-31.

Old English

Alternative forms

• seolf, sylf

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /self/, [se?f]

Pronoun

self

1. self

Derived terms

• selfl??

Descendants

• Middle English: self, silf, sulf
  • English: self
  • Scots: self

Old Saxon

Alternative forms

• selvo

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *selbaz.

Pronoun

self

1. self

Descendants

• Low German: sulv

English

Etymology

From Middle English selfly, from Old English selfl?? (“automatic, spontaneous, voluntary”); equivalent to self +? -ly.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?lfli/

Adjective

selfly (comparative more selfly, superlative most selfly)

1. Of or pertaining to self or one's own self, personal.
   • 2001, Jed Rasula, Steve McCaffery, Imagining Language: An Anthology:

     This denotes and declares the divided tongues, where every property had brought itself forth out of the universal sensual tongue into a selishness and a peculiar selfly understanding, so that they did not any longer understand one another […]

Adverb

selfly (not comparable)

1. In, of, or by one's self; of one's own accord, voluntary, automatic.
   • 1880, Josuah Sylvester, The complete works of Joshuah Sylvester:

     Thy gloomy Front, that selfly hath no light