self

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   (used as a combining form) relating to--of or by or to or from or for--the self

   self-knowledge

2. 2
   noun

   a person considered as a unique individual

   one's own self

3. 3
   pron

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

   This argument was put forward by the defendant self.

4. 4
   pron

   Myself, oneself.

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

5. 5
   noun

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

   She remained her usual cheerful self despite recent setbacks

6. 6
   noun

   The subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions, thoughts.

   Portia: To these injunctions every one doth swear That comes to hazard for my worthless self.

7. 7
   noun

   An individual person as the object of the person's own reflective consciousness (plural selves).

   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.

8. 8
   noun

   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).

   Similarity profiles between helper T cell epitopes (of self or microbial antigens and allergens) and human or microbial SWISSPROT collections were produced. For each antigen, both collections yielded largely overlapping profiles, demonstrating that self-nonself discrimination does not rely on qualitative features that distinguish human from microbial peptides. [...] Epitopes (on self and nonself antigens) can cross-stimulate T cells at increasing potency as their similarity with nonself augments.

Etymology

From Middle English salve, self, silf, from Old English self, seolf, sylf, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ- (“one's own”). Cognates Cognates with Saterland Frisian sälven, säärm, sääuwen (“oneself”), West Frisian sels (“oneself”), Bavarian söbe (“identical, same”), söber (“self”), Dutch zelf (“myself, oneself”), German selber (“self”), selbst (“by oneself”), Luxembourgish selwer (“self”), Yiddish זעלב (zelb, “same”), Danish selv (“self”), Elfdalian siuov (“self”), Faroese sjálvur (“self”), Icelandic sjálfur (“self”), Norwegian Bokmål selv, Norwegian Nynorsk sjølv,…