soimême

Soi-même, written with a space and a hyphen (soi-même), is a French reflexive pronoun used to refer to the subject in an emphatic or general sense. It functions as an intensive or tonic pronoun and is commonly employed to stress that an action is performed by the subject alone or to emphasize the referent in a fixed expression.

Usage and examples

Soi-même appears most often in constructions with prepositions to signify “by oneself” or “on one’s own.” Examples include par soi-même (by oneself) and chasser par soi-même (to do it by oneself). It can also occur in phrases such as chacun pour soi-même, which expresses a sense of individual self-reliance. In many contexts, the everyday pronoun soi is sufficient, but soi-même adds emphasis or specificity, particularly when the subject is generic rather than a specific person.

Distinction from other forms

Soi-même is distinct from the clitic or subject pronouns moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles, which mark specific persons. It is also different from the fully personal emphatic forms like lui-même, elle-même, eux-mêmes, elles-mêmes, which reinforce a known subject in the third person. Soi-même remains in the singular neutral form and does not inflect for gender or number, unlike those specialized forms.

Orthography and history

The normative spelling in modern French is soi-même. Some older texts or typographic variations may show soimême without the hyphen or space, but this is considered nonstandard today. The word traces its origins to the pronoun soi and the reinforcing suffix même.

See also

Pronouns in French, so, soi, emphasis in French grammar, reflexive constructions.