Per"son (?), v. t. To represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate. [Obs.]
Milton.
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.
&fist; 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 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.
Hear it pronounced