perself

English

Etymology

per (from person) + -self (like himself, herself, etc.)

Pronunciation

• enPR: pərˈself
• Rhymes: -ɛlf
• Hyphenation: per‧self

Pronoun

perself

1. (reflexive, rare, nonstandard) Per, themself; gender-neutral object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject, the reflexive form of per.

   Per injured perself.

   • 1996 February 22, Susan Groppi, “These messages make me so sad...”, in alt.adoption (Usenet):

     I can't comment on the original poster's motivations, but I do know that some agencies (mine, for instance) will not release any information until the adoptee is 18, and then the adoptee perself has to request the information.

   • 1996 December 6, Suki L. McDonough, “What's Up?”, in soc.women.lesbian-and-bi (Usenet):

     My hit on the comment was that she was saying that a person on a newsgroup could choose *not* to publicly identify as a member of a visually identifiable minority which is subject to oppression, and therefore spend some time not having to have such oppression directed at perself as an individual (although obviously such a person would still be subject to "ist" postings which aim at the oppressed group in general).

   • 1997 April 22, Anthony and Joy Hilbert, “ASB: Info PDQ please re local group rules”, in alt.sex.bondage (Usenet):

     The person who called perself a dom, but then breached a safeword or did something similarly non-consensual.

Synonyms

• themself

Hyponyms

• himself, herself

See also

• other attested gender-neutral pronouns