Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Person?

\Per"son\, n. [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. A living, 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.) 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.) 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.) 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 person[ae] . . . 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.
\Per"son\, v. t. To represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate. [Obs.] --Milton.