What does "person" mean?
Person: 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.
Additional senses
- 2., 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.
- 3.A human being spoken of indefinitely; one; a man; as, any person present.
- 4.A parson; the parish priest. [Obs.] Chaucer.
- 5.(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.
- 6.(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.
- 7.(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 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.
- 8.To represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate. [Obs.] Milton.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
- Canonical URL: https://worddirectanswers.com/answers/what-does-person-mean
- Steward: Jason Burns
- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00