person

per·son (pûr

1. A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; spokesperson; salesperson.

2. An individual of specified character: a person of importance.

3. The composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality; the self.

4. The living body of a human: searched the prisoner's person.

5. Physique and general appearance.

6. Law A human or organization with legal rights and duties.

7. Christianity Any of the three separate individualities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as distinguished from the essence of the Godhead that unites them.

8. Grammar

a. Any of three groups of pronoun forms with corresponding verb inflections that distinguish the speaker (first person), the individual addressed (second person), and the individual or thing spoken of (third person).

b. Any of the different forms or inflections expressing these distinctions.

9. A character or role, as in a play; a guise: "Well, in her person, I say I will not have you" Shakespeare.

Idiom:

in person

In one's physical presence; personally: applied for the job in person.

[Middle English, from Old French persone, from Latin persna, mask, role, person, probably from Etruscan phersu, mask.]

Usage Note: The word person has found widespread use in recent decades as a gender-neutral alternative to man in the names of occupational and social roles, such as businessperson, chairperson, spokesperson, and layperson. In addition, a variety of entirely new, more inclusive phrases have arisen to compete with or supplant -man compounds. Now we often hear first-year student instead of freshman and letter carrier instead of mailman. In other cases, a clipped form, such as chair for chairman, or a phrase, such as member of the clergy for clergyman, has found widespread use as a neutral alternative. Reflecting this trend, new standards of official usage for occupational titles have been established by the U.S. Department of Labor and other government agencies; for instance, in official contexts, terms such as firefighter and police officer are now generally used in place of fireman and policeman. See Usage Note at man.

person

Noun

pl people or persons

1. an individual human being

2. the body of a human being: he was found to have a knife concealed about his person

3. Grammar a category into which pronouns and forms of verbs are subdivided to show whether they refer to the speaker, the person addressed, or some other individual or thing

4. in person actually doing something or being somewhere oneself: I had the chance to hear her speak in person [Latin persona mask]

USAGE: People is the word usually used to refer to more than one individual: there were a hundred people at the reception. Persons is rarely used, except in official English: several persons were interviewed.

ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Noun	1.	person - a human being; "there was too much for one person to do" individual, mortal, somebody, someone, soul organism, being - a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently causal agency, causal agent, cause - any entity that produces an effect or is responsible for events or results personality - the complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual; "their different reactions reflected their very different personalities"; "it is his nature to help others" chassis, bod, human body, material body, physical body, physique, build, anatomy, figure, flesh, frame, shape, soma, form - alternative names for the body of a human being; "Leonardo studied the human body"; "he has a strong physique"; "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" people - (plural) any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively; "old people"; "there were at least 200 people in the audience" self - a person considered as a unique individual; "one's own self" adult, grownup - a fully developed person from maturity onward adventurer, venturer - a person who enjoys taking risks unusual person, anomaly - a person who is unusual applicant, applier - a person who requests or seeks something such as assistance or employment or admission appointee, appointment - a person who is appointed to a job or position capitalist - a person who invests capital in a business (especially a large business) captor, capturer - a person who captures and holds people or animals changer, modifier - a person who changes something; "an inveterate changer of the menu" color-blind person - a person unable to distinguish differences in hue common man, common person, commoner - a person who holds no title communicator - a person who communicates with others contestant - a person who participates in competitions coward - a person who shows fear or timidity creator - a person who grows or makes or invents things controversialist, disputant, eristic - a person who disputes; who is good at or enjoys controversy applied scientist, engineer, technologist - a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems entertainer - a person who tries to please or amuse experimenter - a person who enjoys testing innovative ideas; "she was an experimenter in new forms of poetry" expert - a person with special knowledge or ability who performs skillfully face - a part of a person that is used to refer to a person; "he looked out at a roomful of faces"; "when he returned to work he met many new faces" female person, female - a person who belongs to the sex that can have babies individualist - a person who pursues independent thought or action denizen, dweller, habitant, inhabitant, indweller - a person who inhabits a particular place aborigine, indigen, indigene, native, aboriginal - an indigenous person who was born in a particular place; "the art of the natives of the northwest coast"; "the Canadian government scrapped plans to tax the grants to aboriginal college students" native - a person born in a particular place or country; "he is a native of Brazil" inexperienced person, innocent - a person who lacks knowledge of evil intellectual, intellect - a person who uses the mind creatively juvenile, juvenile person - a young person, not fully developed lover - a person who loves someone or is loved by someone loved one - a person who you love, usually a member of your family leader - a person who rules or guides or inspires others male person, male - a person who belongs to the sex that cannot have babies money dealer, money handler - a person who receives or invests or pays out money
	2.	person - a human body (usually including the clothing); "a weapon was hidden on his person" chassis, bod, human body, material body, physical body, physique, build, anatomy, figure, flesh, frame, shape, soma, form - alternative names for the body of a human being; "Leonardo studied the human body"; "he has a strong physique"; "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"
	3.	person - a grammatical category used in the classification of pronouns, possessive determiners, and verb forms according to whether they indicate the speaker, the addressee, or a third party; "stop talking about yourself in the third person" grammatical category, syntactic category - (grammar) a category of words having the same grammatical properties first person - pronouns and verbs used to refer to the speaker or writer of the language in which they occur second person - pronouns and verbs used to refer to the person addressed by the language in which they occur third person - pronouns and verbs that are used to refer to something other than the speaker or addressee of the language in which they occur