■ pronoun [ third person singular ] informal used instead of ‘himself’ or ‘herself’ to refer to a person of unspecified sex.
Usage
The standard reflexive form corresponding to they and them is themselves . The singular form ~ has been used recently to correspond to the singular use of they when referring to a person of unspecified sex, as in helping someone to help ~ . However, ~ is not regarded as good English, and themselves should be used instead. For more details, see usage at they .