person

Etymology

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. Doublet of parson and persona.

noun

1. An individual substance of a rational nature; usually a human being.
   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.
      How different […]is the same man from himself, as he sustains the person of a magistrate, and […]that of a friend! 1664, Robert South, Of the Love of Christ to his Disciples
   2. (Christianity) Any one of the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
      three persons and one God 1892, Book of Common Prayer, The Litanie
   3. Any sentient or socially intelligent being.
   4. (in a compound noun or noun phrase) Someone who likes or has an affinity for (a specified thing).
      Jack's always been a dog person, but I prefer cats.
   5. (in a compound noun or noun phrase) A human of unspecified gender (in terms usually constructed with man or woman).
   6. (in a compound noun or noun phrase) A worker in a specified function or specialty.
      I was able to speak to a technical support person and get the problem solved.
2. 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. 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), page 418
   Meanwhile, the dazed Sullivan, dressed like a bum with no identification on his person, is arrested and put to work on a brutal Southern chain gang. 2004, The New York Times
3. (law) Any individual or formal organization with standing before the courts.
   At common law a corporation or a trust is legally a person.
4. (law, euphemistic) The human genitalia; specifically, the penis.
   [E]very Person wilfully, openly, lewdly, and obscenely exposing his Person in any Street, Road, or public Highway, or in the View thereof, or in any Place of public Resort, with Intent to insult any Female ... and being subsequently convicted of the Offence for which he or she shall have been so apprehended, shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond, within the true Intent and Meaning of this Act ... 1824, Vagrancy Act 1824 (5 Geo. 4. c. 83, United Kingdom), section 4
5. (grammar) A linguistic category used to distinguish between the speaker of an utterance and those to whom or about whom they are speaking. See grammatical person.
6. (biology) 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.
   True corms, composed of united personae […] usually arise by gemmation, […] yet in sponges and corals occasionally by fusion of several originally distinct persons. 1884, Patrick Geddes, “Morphology”, in Encyclopædia Britannica, volume 16

verb

1. (obsolete, transitive) To represent as a person; to personify; to impersonate.
2. (transitive, gender-neutral) To man, to supply with staff or crew.
   We had hit the iceberg, and it was time to person the lifeboats. 2007, Brian R. Brenner, Don't Throw This Away!: The Civil Engineering Life, page 40
   We went so far as to stop in a hotel on the way out of Speyer — to ask for directions — but the teenaged girl personing the desk there seemed to be such an idiot[…] 2008, William Guy, Something Sensational, page 337