selves


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selves

 (sĕlvz)
n.
Plural of self.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

selves

(sɛlvz)
n
a. the plural of self
b. (in combination): ourselves; yourselves; themselves.
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

self

(sɛlf)

n.andpron., pl. selves,
adj. n.
1. a person or thing referred to with respect to complete individuality: one's own self.
2. a person's nature, character, etc.: his better self.
3. personal interest.
4. Philos. the subject of experience as contrasted with the object of experience; ego.
5. any of the natural constituents of the body that are normally not subject to attack by components of the immune system.
pron.
6. myself, herself, etc.: to make a check payable to self.
adj.
7. being the same throughout; uniform.
8. being of one piece with or the same material as the rest.
9. Obs. same.
[before 900; Old English self, selfa, c. Old Frisian, Old Saxon self, Old High German selb, Old Norse sjalfr, Gothic silba]

self-

a combining form of self, appearing in various parts of speech, usu. with the implied notion that the agent and object or recipient of a given transitive predicate are identical (self-control; self-government; self-help; self-portrait), or that the subject of a given predicate acts or is effective without assistance (self-adhesive; self-loading; self-study).
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in classic literature ?
For he was both selves, and both selves all the time.
It was the latter's discovery of both his selves that frightened him.
ye will not, if I trust To know ye right, or if ye know your selves Natives and Sons of Heav'n possest before By none, and if not equal all, yet free, Equally free; for Orders and Degrees Jarr not with liberty, but well consist.
the outcome of a social discourse, a construction of language, culture and interaction, how is it possible that one of the selves, I encounter in the social world, is me?
Selves did not come from the same stuff as trees, and stones, and arms, and legs, and knuckles, and immune systems.