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LATIN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

ipse.

himself, herself, itself, the very, the actual

4 characters2 syllables approx.Latina language

Meaning & usage

det[ˈɪp.sɛ]Classical-Latin[ˈip.se]
  1. himself, herself, itself, the very, the actual

    demonstrative · determiner · emphatic · no-comparative
  2. specific reference to the chief, the leader, the one, etc., used to distinguish the principal person from the subordinates

    demonstrative · determiner · no-comparative
  3. in person

    demonstrative · determiner · no-comparative
  4. for one's part, for his part, for her part

    demonstrative · determiner · no-comparative
  5. alone, by oneself, by one's own accord, of one's own nature

    demonstrative · determiner · no-comparative
  6. just (with an adverb of time)

    demonstrative · determiner · no-comparative
    nunc ipsum
    tum ipsum
  7. exactly, precisely, just (with a numeral or for contrast)

    demonstrative · determiner · no-comparative
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Proto-Italic *e(s)peso, a compound pronoun whose p sound has an origin difficult to trace. The p sound is traditionally explained as follows. In Old Latin when both parts were inflected, an epenthetic consonant, p, was inserted in the form *eum-sum, yielding *eum-p-sum. From these accusative forms the stems -pso and -psā were extracted and adapted to the nominative forms, thus *ipsus and *eapsa. Ultimately the paradigm was assimilated to that of iste, ille, with only later in the history of Latin neuter ipsum becoming ipsud. De Vaan argues that the p need not necessarily be epenthetic, but instead it may be the particle -pe.

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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.