Definition of "self" in English

pronoun

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

   • This argument was put forward by the defendant self.

2. (commercial or humorous) Myself, oneself.

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

noun

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

   • She remained her usual cheerful self despite recent setbacks
   • John Locke argued that the mind is not like a furnished flat, prestocked before occupation with innate ideas, but like a home put together piecemeal from mental acquisitions picked up bit by bit. The self is thus the bit-by-bit product of experience and education: we are what we become - or, in Wordworth's later phrase, the child is the father of the man. Particular parents, surroundings and stimuli produce individuated selves. Identity is thus unique because contingent, the cumulative product of ceaseless occurrences.

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

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

4. Self-interest or personal advantage.

5. (botany) A seedling produced by self-pollination (plural selfs).

6. (botany) A flower having its colour uniform as opposed to variegated.

7. (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).

verb

1. (botany) To fertilize by the same individual; to self-fertilize or self-pollinate.

2. (botany) To fertilize by the same strain; to inbreed.

adjective

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.

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).