to lose oneself
22
5.1
- phrasal verb
:
perderse en
- During the concert, I lost myself in the music and forgot everything else.
Examples
-
Just don't lose yourself.
-
- Guess it seems like the kind of place you could just lose yourself.
-
No, the whole point is to relax and lose yourself.
-
It's the planning, the trying, and losing yourself in it.
Fiction book (1993) -
She'd be almost impossible to track down if she decided just to lose herself out there.
Fiction book (1993) -
One can lose oneself in this quite easily.
-
Pat watches him and loses herself in what he is doing.
Fiction book (1990) -
You need to run with gypsies and lose yourself in amazing adventures.
Fiction book (1998) -
Though she always feels like a tourist and not a traveler, she can lose herself anyway.
Fiction book (1997) -
Lose yourself in something that's both ancient and perennial.
Synonyms
503
5.5
Become so involved in something that you forget your surroundings
112
3.1
To give all your attention to something
59
4.8
Make someone fully involved in an activity or interest
28
4.2
To become fully involved in an activity or subject
16
3.9
To take in and enjoy the atmosphere or information
Antonyms
How Absorbed
22
5.1
28
4.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to become deeply absorbed' is partly derivable from combining 'lose' (to cease to have or to no longer possess) with the reflexive 'oneself' (one's own awareness), so a learner can infer losing awareness of oneself. However, the meaning is somewhat metaphorical (losing awareness rather than literally losing a self) and often requires the prepositional context (e.g., 'in' something) to be fully clear, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Lose oneself creates a clear picture: imagine you lose your usual sense of oneself in a book, music, or work and forget the world around you. That's why it means 'to become fully involved and not notice anything else'.