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PlainSpell

person

per·son/ˈpɜɹ.sən/noun, verb

person is a noun meaning “An individual who has been granted personhood; usually a human being” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-E-R-S-O-N and has 2 syllables (per·son), and it appears 355 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of person is people or persons.

What does person mean?

noun

  1. 1

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

  2. 2

    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.

  3. 3

    Any one of the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

  4. 4

    Any sapient or socially intelligent being.

  5. 5

    Someone who likes or has an affinity for (a specified thing).

    Jack's always been a dog person, but I prefer cats.

  6. 6

    A human of unspecified gender (in terms usually constructed with man or woman).

  7. 7

    A worker in a specified function or specialty.

    I was able to speak to a technical support person and get the problem solved.

  8. 8

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

    At first blush it seemed that what was striking about him rested on the fact that his dress was exotic, his person foreign.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate.

  2. 2

    To man, to supply with staff or crew.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce person?

  • UK /ˈpɜː.sən/
  • UK [ˈpʰɜːsn̩]
  • US /ˈpɜɹ.sən/

Person has 2 syllables, split per·son in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-person.ogg, En-us-person.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of person

  • people plural
  • persons plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • personing participle, present
  • personning participle, present
  • personed participle, past
  • personned participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is person?

Person appears 355 times per million words in written English, the 256th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you abbreviate person?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of person: pers..

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Person in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpersonne (individual)
GermanPerson (individual), Mensch (specifically a human being – see also human…), Körper (the physical body seen as distinct from the mind)
Portuguesepessoa (individual)
Spanishpersona, chero (individual), cuerpo (the physical body seen as distinct from the mind)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does person come from?

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. Displaced native Old English hād (“person, individual”). Doublet of parson and persona.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).