overwordExplorer
GERMAN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

selbst.

personally, by oneself

6 characters1 syllables approx.Deutsch language

Meaning & usage

particle/zɛlpst/Germany/zɛlps/Germany, also, colloquial, usually/sɛlpst/Austria, Southern-Germany, Switzerland

  1. personally, by oneself

    Du hast es selbst zugegeben.
    Der Mann selbst hat uns es gesagt.
Where this word comes from

With excrescent -t (same: eins > einst, su(n)s > sonst etc.) fossilized from the neutral gendered Middle High German sëlbes, from the Old High German pronoun sëlb, sëlbo, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ- (“one's own”), from *s(w)e- (“separate, apart”). Compare Low German sulv, Dutch zelf, English self, Danish selv.

adv/zɛlpst/Germany/zɛlps/Germany, also, colloquial, usually/sɛlpst/Austria, Southern-Germany, Switzerland

  1. even

    Selbst du hast es zugegeben.
Where this word comes from

With excrescent -t (same: eins > einst, su(n)s > sonst etc.) fossilized from the neutral gendered Middle High German sëlbes, from the Old High German pronoun sëlb, sëlbo, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ- (“one's own”), from *s(w)e- (“separate, apart”). Compare Low German sulv, Dutch zelf, English self, Danish selv.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.