Samému

Samému is a grammatical form used in Czech and Slovak. It is the dative singular masculine or neuter form of the demonstrative adjective samý, which conveys meanings related to sameness or emphasis, roughly corresponding to “the very one” or “the same.” As a declined form, samému appears when the noun it modifies is in the dative case, and it is used to indicate the indirect object or to emphasize identity with a referent in context.

In those languages, samý has related forms across genders and numbers, and samému is part of its inflectional paradigm. The form is more common in formal, literary, or careful prose, though it can appear in everyday language as well. Its use helps foreground the referent as the specific, already established target of an action or comparison.

The etymology traces samý to the Proto-Slavic root associated with self or sameness, linked to the broader family of words that express emphasis or identity. The diacritic-bearing spelling samému is characteristic of Czech and Slovak orthography and reflects standard inflection rules for this class of adjectives.

In practice, samému functions as a bound form rather than a standalone lexical item. Learners typically encounter it as part of broader declension patterns for demonstrative adjectives, alongside related forms such as samý (the same) and sám (self) in related constructions. See also: samý, sám.