Thiself

Part of speech: pronoun

Definitions

1. An archaic form of thyself, used to refer back to the person being addressed as the object of an action or for emphasis
2. Old-fashioned reflexive pronoun meaning the one being spoken to, used as the object of a verb or to add emphasis
3. Archaic second-person reflexive form pointing back to the listener, commonly found in older English poetry and scripture

Etymology: "Thiself" is an archaic reflexive pronoun, the old form of "thyself," used for the second person singular. Its structure is simple: "thee" or "thy" plus "self," so it means "you yourself" in the singular, paired with "himself," "herself," and "itself" in the third person. The "self" element is an old Germanic word, related to modern German "selbst," and it was attached to the pronouns used for the single person addressed. English used "thyself" and "thiself" in parallel with "thee" and "thou," and the two spellings shared the same sound. The spelling "thiself" appears in some early modern texts, reflecting the vowel pronunciation of "thi-" in the period, but "thyself" was the more common form in print. Both forms fell out of everyday use as "thou" and its forms gave way to "you" in standard English, though they survived in religious language and poetry for centuries.