person

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a human being

   there was too much for one person to do

2. 2
   noun

   a human body, usually including the clothing

   A weapon was hidden on their person.

3. 3
   noun

   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

4. 4
   noun

   An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being.

   1784, William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c., PREFACE THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Perſons of the firſt diſtinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ſeveral new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and diſtinguiſh it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.

5. 5
   noun

   The physical body of a being seen as distinct from the mind, character, etc.

   […]when the young Ladies laughed at her for it, ſhe replied that it was not his perſon that ſhe did embrace and reverence, but the divine beauty of his Soule.

6. 6
   noun

   Any individual or formal organization with standing before the courts.

   At common law a corporation or a trust is legally a person.

7. 7
   noun

   The human genitalia; specifically, the penis.

   [E]very Person wilfully, openly, lewdly, and obscenely exposing his Person in any Street, Road, or public Highway, or in the View thereof, or in any Place of public Resort, with Intent to insult any Female ... and being subsequently convicted of the Offence for which he or she shall have been so apprehended, shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond, within the true Intent and Meaning of this Act ...

8. 8
   noun

   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.

Etymology

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.