yourself
- 1Used to refer back to the one person addressed as the object of an action they perform.
You should take better care of yourself during exam season.
Pour yourself a drink and relax after the long drive.
UsageUse it when you is the subject of the same clause: you'll hurt yourself. For more than one person, use yourselves.
Note
The idiom to find yourself doing or being something stretches this reflexive sense to mean realizing it, often with surprise, as when Madeline Holcombe writes of finding yourself being a people pleaser.
- 2Used to add emphasis to 'you', stressing that the person addressed takes part personally, often without anyone's help.
You yourself admitted that the plan had serious flaws.
Did you write the entire report yourself?
UsageComes after you or at the end: you yourself said so; did you make it yourself? At the end it often means without help.
Note
The same form doing a different job: here it adds weight rather than naming an object. Dropping it still leaves a complete sentence. That quick test separates it from the reflexive, whose object usually cannot be dropped without breaking the sentence or changing its meaning.
- 3Used after verbs like be, feel and seem to refer to your ordinary, natural character and condition.
Take a few days off until you feel yourself again.
At the interview, relax and be yourself rather than reciting rehearsed answers.
UsageMostly in set phrases: be yourself, feel yourself again, and the gentle you're not yourself today.
Note
After be, feel or seem, the pronoun stops receiving an action and names a state instead, working almost like an adjective. Compare the reflexive use, where an action turns back on you, as in you cut yourself.
- 4Used to mean simply 'you' (singular), even in places where 'you' has not appeared earlier in the sentence.
If yourself and the solicitor could sign here, we'll have the paperwork finished by Friday.
Would the table this evening be for yourself?
UsageOften beside another person: my colleague and yourself. Many editors treat it as an error; in formal writing, use you.
Similaryou
Note
Irish English especially uses yourself as a plain, rather courteous you, with no earlier you for it to reflect: I spoke with yourself last in February.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English yourself, equivalent to "your" combined with "-self".
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Yourself comes from Middle English yourself and is equivalent to your combined with -self. en.wiktionary.org