Edit page | Page history | Printable version

Person

1. A character or part, as in a play; a specific kind or manifestation of individual character, whether in real life, or in literary or dramatic representation; an assumed character. His first appearance upon the stage in his new person of a sycophant or juggler. (bacon) No man can long put on a person and act a part. (Jer. Taylor) To bear rule, which was thy part And person, hadst thou known thyself aright. (milton) How different is the same man from himself, as he sustains the person of a magistrate and that of a friend! (south)

2. The bodily form of a human being; body; outward appearance; as, of comely person. A fair persone, and strong, and young of age. (Chaucer) If it assume my noble fathers person. (Shak) Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined. (milton)

3, self-conscious being, as distinct from an animal or a thing; a moral agent; a human being; a man, woman, or child. Consider what person stands for; which, i think, is a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection. (locke)

4. A human being spoken of indefinitely; one; a man; as, any person present.

5. A parson; the parish priest.

6. Among Trinitarians, one of the three subdivisions of the Godhead (the father, the Son, and the holy ghost); an hypostasis. Three persons and d84 one god.

7. One of three relations or conditions (that of speaking, that of being spoken to, and that of being spoken of) pertaining to a noun or a pronoun, and thence also to the verb of which it may be the subject.

A noun or pronoun, when representing the speaker, is said to be in the first person; when representing what is spoken to, in the second person; when representing what is spoken of, in the third person.

8. (Science: biology) A shoot or bud of a plant; a polyp or zooid of the compound hydrozoa anthozoa, etc.; also, an individual, in the narrowest sense, among the higher animals. True corms, composed of united personae . . . Usually arise by gemmation, . . . Yet in sponges and corals occasionally by fusion of several originally distinct persons. (Encyc. Brit) artificial, or Fictitious, person, a man, woman, or child, in distinction from a corporation. In person, by one's self; with bodily presence; not by representative. The king himself in person is set forth. . In the person of, in the place of; acting for.

Origin: oe. Persone, persoun, person, parson, OF. Persone, f. Personne, L. Persona a mask (used by actors), a personage, part, a person, fr. Personare to sound through; per _ sonare to sound. See Per-, and cf. Parson.