themselvesとは 意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA: /ðɛmˈsɛlvz/, /ðəmˈsɛlvz/
• ハイフネーション: them‧selves
• 韻: -ɛlvz

代名詞

themselves (third-person, reflexive of they)

1. (reflexive pronoun) The reflexive case of they, the third-person plural personal pronoun. The group of people, animals, or objects previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis).

   (reflexively):

   They’ve hurt themselves.

   (after a preposition):

   They fought among themselves.

   (for emphasis):

   They are going to try climbing Mount Everest themselves.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     The preposterous altruism too! […] Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.

   • 2008 February 17, Jennifer Finney Boylan, “At the Maine Caucuses, a Tough Nut to Crack”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 26 November 2022:

     The real drama came as these two camps fought for undecideds, who literally found themselves in the middle.

2. (reflexive pronoun) The reflexive case of they, the third-person singular personal pronoun. The single person previously mentioned, as the object of a verb or following a preposition (also used for emphasis).

   (reflexively):

   Would whoever stole my phone please make themselves known.

   (after a preposition):

   I don't want anyone to fight among themselves.

   (for emphasis):

   Everyone must do it themselves.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Philippians 2:3:

     Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

   • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 18:

     In fact she was so busy doing all the things that anyone might, who finds themselves alone in an empty house, that she did not notice at first when it began to turn dusk and the rooms to grow dim.

   • 2024 August 9, Meg Tirrell, “First nasal spray epinephrine drug for emergency allergic reactions gets FDA approval”, in CNN‎:

     “Anyone who has experienced or witnessed an anaphylaxis reaction knows it can be very stressful deciding when to inject epinephrine to themselves or a child and often delay,” Dr. Jonathan Spergel, chief of the allergy program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a news release from ARS Pharmaceuticals.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:themselves.

使用する際の注意点

• Regarding the use of singular themselves (as opposed to themself or e.g. himself), see the usage notes about they, themself, and he, respectively.

同意語

• 'emselves (colloquial)
• theirselves (nonstandard)
• (singular): themself (non-gender-specific), theirself (non-gender-specific, but nonstandard), himself, herself (gender-specific)

参考