impersonal








adjective

  1. not personal; without reference or connection to a particular person: an impersonal remark.
  2. having no personality; devoid of human character or traits: an impersonal deity.
  3. lacking human emotion or warmth: an impersonal manner.
  4. Grammar.
    1. (of a verb) having only third person singular forms and rarely if ever accompanied by an expressed subject, as Latin pluit “it is raining,” or regularly accompanied by an empty subject word, as English to rain in It is raining.
    2. (of a pronoun or pronominal reference) indefinite, as French on “one.”

noun

  1. Grammar. an impersonal verb or pronoun.

adjective

  1. without reference to any individual person; objectivean impersonal assessment
  2. devoid of human warmth or sympathy; coldan impersonal manner
  3. not having human characteristicsan impersonal God
  4. grammar (of a verb) having no logical subject. Usually in English the pronoun it is used in such cases as a grammatical subject, as for example in It is raining
  5. grammar (of a pronoun) not denoting a person
adj.

mid-15c., a grammatical term, from Late Latin impersonalis, from assimilated form of in- “not, opposite of” (see in- (1)) + personalis “personal” (see personal). Sense of “not connected with any person” is from 1620s; that of “not endowed with personality” is from 1842. Related: impersonally.

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