Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1963 (DOST Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Itself, †It self, pron. Also: selfe, selff, selve and yt selfe. [ME. itself (14th c.), earlier it, hit selue, self, OE. hit self; It pron., Self. Chiefly written as two words. Uncommon; the usual Sc. expression was the self.] Itself, in emphatic and reflexive uses. Chiefly in the prep. phrases in and of it self.(1) 1385 3rd Rep. Hist. MSS. 410/1.
And to do … eftyr my somons … as the law and ordyr of law askys in yt selfe 1399 Holyrood Chart. 113.
[The indenture] sall he of na valow … bot be qwit of it selfe c1420 Wynt. viii. 5618.
A wycht hows … That rycht wycht off it-selff [v.rr. the self] it was 1436 Coll. Aberd. & B. 394.
The processe was suthfaste and lauchfully done in it selff 1522 Grant Burgh Schools 56.
Quhy is ane pronowne first persone? For it signifyis the thing that spekis of itself 1584 Acts III. 294/2.
Ane crime … haynous in it self c1600 Pont Cunningham 6.
[The soil] being of it selve of a spongeous nature 1627 Aberd. Council Lett. I. 261.
This auld consuetude … is verie equitable of it selff(2) 1533 Gau 84/14.
Psalmis ar guid prayers bot thay schaw notht sa cleirlie this prayers meninge as it dwis it selff a1570-86 J. Maitland Maitl. F. lxxxviii. 6.
The suythe sall schaw it selffe out to thair schame 1597 James VI Dæmonol. 40.
I thinke it is directlie contrarie to it selfe, for it to be made so little and yet not diminished(3) 1606 Birnie Kirk-b. xvii.
They agree to the graue as the … gate of Hell, so … by the same figure, to the golfe itselfe