A reflexive pronoun meaning we/us people, used when a group does something to itself or for emphasis about who is involved.
Combination of 'our' (possessive plural) and 'self' (from Old English 'self' meaning one's own person). This reflexive pronoun construction is common in Germanic languages and evolved as English needed a way to show that a subject acts upon itself.
English pronouns reveal how we think: the fact that 'ourselves' exists as a single word shows that English speakers see a group as a single unified entity acting on itself, something not all languages grammatically reflect the same way!
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