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Glite Dictionary
reflexive verb

reflexive verb

6.8
A verb where one person does and receives the action, using words like 'myself'
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : verbo reflexivo
  • In the sentence 'She dressed herself', 'dressed' is a reflexive verb.

Examples

  • 'He prides himself on his work'—here 'prides' is used as a reflexive verb.

  • A common example of a reflexive verb is 'She taught herself to play the piano.'

  • In some languages, every reflexive verb uses a special pronoun.

  • A reflexive verb involves the subject acting on itself.

  • Can you give an example of a reflexive verb?

  • In the sentence 'They enjoyed themselves at the party', 'enjoyed' is a reflexive verb.

  • When using a reflexive verb, the subject and object are the same, like in 'He cut himself while cooking.'

Surface Forms

reflexive verb singular
reflexive verbs plural

Morphology

reflexive + verb

The meaning is directly compositional: 'reflexive' (referring back to the subject) combined with 'verb' yields a verb where the action refers back to the subject. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'verbo reflexivo', French 'verbe réfléchi'), so a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer the intended meaning.

Etymology

Reflexive verb uses reflexive to show an action that comes back to the same person, like someone touching their own face in a mirror. So a reflexive verb is a verb where the person who does the action and the person who gets the action are the same, which is why we use words like 'myself' or 'yourself'.