Reflexive describes an action that naturally turns back on itself or happens automatically without thinking.

In grammar, a reflexive pronoun refers back to the subject of the sentence. When you say “I taught myself to juggle,” the word myself is reflexive because it points back to “I.” You're both the teacher and the student in that sentence. Other reflexive pronouns include yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, and themselves. If someone says “They congratulated themselves,” the congratulating loops back to the same people who did the action.

The word also describes actions or responses that happen automatically, like a reflex. When a doctor taps your knee and your leg kicks, that's a reflexive response because you don't think about it. Your body just reacts. Similarly, if you reflexively duck when something flies at your head, you're not making a careful decision. Your body protects itself automatically.

In mathematics, a reflexive relationship is one where something relates to itself. The statement “5 equals 5” shows a reflexive property because any number equals itself.

The key idea connecting these meanings is the notion of turning back or referring back to the starting point, whether it's a pronoun pointing to its subject, a reaction looping through your nervous system, or a relationship that something has with itself.