person

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A human being.

   There was too much work for one person to do alone.

2. 2
   noun

   Someone's body, including their clothes.

   The guard found a weapon hidden on his person.

3. 3
   noun

   A grammatical form showing whether a word refers to the speaker, the listener, or someone else.

   Try not to talk about yourself in the third person.

Common collocations

• young person Adjective + noun
• disabled person Adjective + noun
• ordinary person Adjective + noun

From Middle English persoun, personne et al., from Anglo-Norman parsone, persoun et al. (Old French persone (“human being”), French personne), and its source Latin persōna (“mask used by actor; role, part, character”), perhaps a loanword from Etruscan 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (φersu, “mask”). In this sense, displaced native man, which came to mean primarily "adult male" in Middle English; see Old English mann. Doublet of parson and persona.

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