person

英文詞源

person

person: [13] Latin persōna originally denoted a ‘mask, particularly one worn by an actor’ (it may have been borrowed from Etruscan phersu ‘mask’). It gradually evolved through ‘character played by an actor’ (a meaning preserved in English persona [20], a term introduced by Jungian psychology) to ‘individual human being’. It entered English via Old French persone, and by the normal processes of phonetic development has become parson.

But this in the Middle English period was hived off (for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained) to ‘priest’, and the original Latinate spelling person was restored for ‘human being’. Other derivatives to have reached English include impersonate [17], personage [15], personal [14], personality [14], and, via French, personnel [19].
=> impersonate, parson, personnel

person (n.)

early 13c., from Old French persone "human being, anyone, person" (12c., Modern French personne) and directly from Latin persona "human being, person, personage; a part in a drama, assumed character," originally "mask, false face," such as those of wood or clay worn by the actors in later Roman theater. OED offers the general 19c. explanation of persona as "related to" Latin personare "to sound through" (i.e. the mask as something spoken through and perhaps amplifying the voice), "but the long o makes a difficulty ...." Klein and Barnhart say it is possibly borrowed from Etruscan phersu "mask." Klein goes on to say this is ultimately of Greek origin and compares Persephone.

Of corporate entities from mid-15c. The use of -person to replace -man in compounds and avoid alleged sexist connotations is first recorded 1971 (in chairperson). In person "by bodily presence" is from 1560s. Person-to-person first recorded 1919, originally of telephone calls.