Self

noun, plural selves.
1.
a person or thing referred to with respect to complete individuality:
one’s own self.
2.
a person’s nature, character, etc.:
his better self.
3.
personal interest.
4.
Philosophy.

the ego; that which knows, remembers, desires, suffers, etc., as contrasted with that known, remembered, etc.
the uniting principle, as a soul, underlying all subjective experience.

adjective
5.
being the same throughout, as a color; uniform.
6.
being of one piece with or the same material as the rest:
drapes with a self lining.
7.
Immunology. the natural constituents of the body, which are normally not subject to attack by components of the immune system (contrasted with nonself).
8.
Obsolete. same.
pronoun, plural selves.
9.
myself, himself, herself, etc.:
to make a check payable to self.
verb (used with or without object)
10.
to self-pollinate.
1.
a combining form of self and variously used with the meanings “of the self” (self-analysis) and “by oneself or itself” (self-appointed); and with the meanings “to, with, toward, for, on, in oneself” (self-complacent), “inherent in oneself or itself” (self-explanatory), “independent” (self-government), and “automatic” (self-operating).
noun (pl) selves (sɛlvz)
1.
the distinct individuality or identity of a person or thing
2.
a person’s usual or typical bodily make-up or personal characteristics: she looked her old self again
3.
(rare) good self, good selves, a polite way of referring to or addressing a person (or persons), used following your, his, her, or their
4.
one’s own welfare or interests: he only thinks of self
5.
an individual’s consciousness of his own identity or being
6.
(philosophy) the self, that which is essential to an individual, esp the mind or soul in Cartesian metaphysics; the ego
7.
a bird, animal, etc, that is a single colour throughout, esp a self-coloured pigeon
pronoun
8.
(not standard) myself, yourself, etc: seats for self and wife
adjective
9.
of the same colour or material: a dress with a self belt See also self-coloured
10.
(obsolete) the same
combining form
1.
of oneself or itself: self-defence, self-rule
2.
by, to, in, due to, for, or from the self: self-employed, self-inflicted, self-respect
3.
automatic or automatically: self-propelled

self (sělf)
n. pl. selves (sělz)

The total, essential, or particular being of a person; the individual.

One’s consciousness of one’s own being or identity; the ego.

language
A small, dynamically typed object-oriented language, based purely on prototypes and delegation. Self was developed by the Self Group at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Inc. and Stanford University. It is an experimental exploratory programming language.
Release 2.0 introduces full source-level debugging of optimised code, adaptive optimisation to shorten compile pauses, lightweight threads within Self, support for dynamically linking foreign functions, changing programs within Self and the ability to run the experimental Self graphical browser under OpenWindows. Designed for expressive power and malleability, Self combines a pure, prototype-based object model with uniform access to state and behaviour. Unlike other languages, Self allows objects to inherit state and to change their patterns of inheritance dynamically. Self’s customising compiler can generate very efficient code compared to other dynamically-typed object-oriented languages.
Version: 3.0 runs on Sun-3 (no optimiser) and Sun-4.
(http://sunlabs.com/research/self/).
[“Self: The Power of Simplicity”, David Ungar [email protected] et al, SIGPLAN Notices 22(12):227-242, OOPSLA ’87, Dec 1987].
(1999-06-09)