yourself

The word “yourself” means refers back to the person being spoken to, when they are both the doer and the receiver of an action. In plain terms, you, referring back to yourself — used when you do something to or for yourself, or for emphasis.

“Yourself” is pronounced yuh-SEHLF (/jəˈsɛlf/ in IPA).

Here is “yourself” used in a sentence: “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Yourself” is a pronoun.

“Yourself” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“Yourself” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: refers back to the person being spoken to, when they are both the doer and the receiver of an action.

You is the ordinary pronoun for the person spoken to, whether as subject or object — 'you called,' 'I saw you.' Yourself is reflexive or emphatic, used only when you are both the doer and receiver — 'you'll tire yourself out' — or to stress the point — 'you said it yourself.'

Yourself is singular, referring to one person — 'help yourself.' Yourselves is plural, referring to two or more — 'help yourselves.' English keeps this distinction in the reflexive forms even though the word you stays the same for one person or many, so the ending signals how many people you mean.

Use yourself only when the subject is you and the action returns to that same person — 'you might hurt yourself' — or for emphasis — 'did you fix it yourself?' Avoid it as a would-be polite version of you; 'I'll send yourself the file' should simply be 'I'll send you the file.'

Yourself appears when you acts on you: 'be yourself,' 'help yourself to more,' 'you should be proud of yourself.' Used for emphasis it stresses who did something: 'you built this yourself?' or 'you yourself agreed to it.' In each case a single listener is both subject and object.