Category:Person

Per"son, n. Etym: [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.]

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. [archaic] 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 father's 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. [obs.] Chaucer.

6. (theol.)

Defn: among trinitarians, one of the three subdivisions of the Godhead (the father, the son, and the holy ghost); an hypostasis. "three persons and one god." Bk. of com. Prayer.

7. (gram.)

Defn: 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.

Note: 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. (biol.)

Defn: 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. Haeckel. True corms, composed of united personæ. . . usually arise by Gemmation,. . . yet in sponges and corals occasionally by fusion of Several originally distinct persons. Encyc. Brit. Artificial, or fictitious, person (law), a corporation or body Politic. blackstone. -- natural person (law), 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." Shak. -- in the person of, in the place of; acting for. Shak.

Person Per"son, v. t.

Defn: to represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate. [obs.] Milton.