What does ourselves mean?
Word: Ourselves
Part of Speech: Pronoun
Meaning: Ourselves means us; used when the people speaking are also the ones an action is done to, or to stress that we did something with no help.
How do you spell ourselves?
Syllables: our - selves
Tricky part: Self becomes selves for more than one, so the f changes to v: never ourselfs.
Watch out for: ourselfs, ourselvs
Memory tip: One shelf, two shelves; one self, two selves: ourselves follows the same pattern.
Ourselves in a sentence
Example 1: We made ourselves a quick snack after school.
Example 2: My sister and I painted the rangoli ourselves.
Example 3: Let us not fool ourselves: the test will be hard.
Fun Fact
In older English, a king or queen using the royal we could say ourself, with no s, because only one person was meant.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Makeup
Choose the correctly spelt compound word:
a) anywere
b) someboddy
c) ourselves
d) eachother
Show answer
c) ourselves. Anywhere has an h after the w, each other is two words, and somebody has one d.
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
ourrselves
a) u
b) s
c) o
d) r
Show answer
d) r. The word begins with our, which has a single r.
Mingle-Mangle
The jumbled letters in the sentence hide a word. Choose it.
We cleaned the classroom by rlvusoees before the parents arrived.
a) themselves
b) resolves
c) ourselves
d) yourselves
Show answer
c) ourselves. There is no y, t, h or m in the jumble, and resolves has no u, so only ourselves fits.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is correct. Choose the meaning of that word.
1. becuase 2. ourselves 3. neccessary 4. truely
a) for the reason that
b) us and no one else
c) honestly and really
d) needed or required
Show answer
b) us and no one else. Necessary has one c, because has au after the c, and truly drops the e of true.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which sentence uses ourselves correctly?
a) They kindly helped ourselves to lunch.
b) We taught ourselves to swim last summer.
c) Riya and ourselves are good friends.
d) Ourselves went to the market early.
Show answer
b) We taught ourselves to swim last summer.
2. In 'We ourselves built the stage', the word ourselves is used to ____.
a) show that the stage was badly built
b) stress that we did it with no help
c) say that someone else helped us
d) turn the sentence into a question
Show answer
b) stress that we did it with no help
