n.
(pl. people or persons)
- a human being regarded as an individual.
▸an individual characterized by a preference or liking for a specified thing:
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she's not a cat person.
▸a character in a play or story.
▸an individual's body:
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concealed on his person.
- Grammar a category used in the classification of pronouns, possessive determiners, and verb forms, according to whether they indicate the speaker
(first person)
, the addressee
(second person)
, or a third party
(third person)
.
- Christian Theology each of the three modes of being of God, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Phrase
- in person
with the personal presence or action of the individual specified.
Usage
The words people and persons are not used in exactly the same way. People is by far the commoner and is used in most ordinary contexts: a group of people; several thousand people have been rehoused. Persons, on the other hand, tends now to be restricted to official or formal contexts, as in this vehicle is authorized to carry twenty persons.
Etymology
ME: from OFr. persone, from L. persona ‘actor's mask, character in a play’, later ‘human being’.
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